


Addicted to You

by castlesinthesand



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Bottom Levi, Character Development, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multiple Pairings, Past Relationship(s), Relationship(s), Smut, Student AU, Top Eren, erenxlevi - Freeform, levixeren - Freeform, sad end, slight sexual tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-20 20:17:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 85,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9511700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castlesinthesand/pseuds/castlesinthesand
Summary: Overcoming an addiction is tough, Eren could spout out in detail just how agonizing it could be, but when he becomes entranced with someone and not something, his mind might be changed forever.





	1. Gateway

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! Thank you for reading, I've written out this story a couple times and then gone back and changed it, so hopefully it is not as atrocious as the first version I published!

"Fuck," I whispered to myself, flopping on the bed in my new apartment. Not that it could really be called a “bed” yet, it was just a bare mattress I had haphazardly thrown on the floor, the bed frame was still in a box in the corner, still disassembled.

  
Fuck school, fuck my career, fuck my life.

  
Was that really my attitude now? I knew I had issues, but was this really what I had come to?

  
"No", I thought, You got into a college and found a nice apartment, at least. You should be happy about that.  
The college I was going to didn't have room for dorms, but I was lucky enough to find a decently priced apartment nearby.  
I got into a really shitty college though. It was an "art" school. Meaning all the people who had shitty grades would get dumped here. To be honest though I'm not any better than them. God, I barely graduated. Whatever. I didn't want to go to a fancy college anyway. There were three main courses you could choose from: physical art, performing arts, or creative writing (what I chose). I had always wanted to be an author, I don't know how, or where the desire come from, but it just felt right. I always had been good at writing sad stories.

  
"Dammit, why can't you just be normal for once? Why can't you have just gotten into a normal school, and had normal career goals?" I asked myself, "Because you're a psychopath that talks to himself. That's why," I retorted. Was I going crazy? It honestly wouldn't surprise me if I was going crazy, and right now a padded cell seemed like a better option than living in this condition. I had been cooped up too long in this damn building, I needed some fresh air.  
I stepped into what could be a living room once I unpacked all my boxes, that now littered the entirety of the room. There was large window that faced a forest in the living room, and as I opened it I was struck by the scent of water, it had just rained. I could go for a cigarette right now, however, knowing myself if I were to indulge myself even just this once, I would soon be fully addicted aga.

  
I wasn’t going to go down that road again. When addiction, no matter how small, latched its talons into me I became consumed. I wasn’t going to go back to that, not now, not ever. I had tried so hard to straighten myself out, I wasn’t just going to be the fuck up that everyone believed I was.

  
I closed the window and looked at my reflection in the dark glass. My reflection stared back at me, I seemed to familiar to myself, yet so foreign. I had the same mop of brown hair that had always occupied the top of my head, the same eyes, the same skin, everything was just as it always had been. But it felt like I was somehow different. Like the skin was stretched too thin across a different person’s bones. I had never had a strong sense of self to begin with, so perhaps this was just the way I was reacting to actually trying not to be a fuck up for once.

  
I sighed, walked to my bedroom, and pulled off my clothes. I didn't really care where they ended up, the only thing that was on my mind now was sleep.

  
I set the alarm on my phone and set it on the bedside table. I fell asleep unusually quickly.

  
The sound of artificial chirps woke me up at 7:00 the next morning. I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on the same clothes that I had worn the previous day. I wasn't concerned with my appearance, so I didn't even bother taking a shower or shaving, pedostache be dammed.

  
I grabbed a spiral notebook, a pen, a pencil, and my laptop and managed to leave my apartment by 7:05. Being early was surprisingly one of my few talents.

  
My apartment was only about a block away from the school campus, I got there at about 7:10.  
"Fan-fucking-tasctic," I thought, "50 minutes early." I sighed. I made my way through the school's network of hallways and somehow made it to the center area. The school itself was a giant block "u" shape that circled a large hill covered in trees. There were tables set up on a small concrete block, that was more towards the school than it was the hill.  
I was the only one there, morning classes didn't start until 8:00. I chose a table that was the farthest from everything, sat down. It was a nice morning, it was September, so the leaves had not started to turn yet, but it was still pleasantly cool. Fall was always better than summer, I didn't like it when the weather decided that it was going to be hotter than hell. I didn’t like the harsh sun.

  
I opened my laptop and clicked on the documents icon. I had a story already started, so I continued what I had already written. Only a few people came into the center area of the school before the clock chimed 7:50. I decide that I should probably head to my first class. I would probably get lost. I had a terrible sense of direction when it came to hallways. Or just in general. I was always lost.

  
Creative writing was something I was passionate about, but honestly the class was almost impossible to sit through. No scratch that, it was impossible to sit through. The entire time we were in there the professor just babbled on about developing a good story idea, grammar, and how he would inevitably fail us all because we all sucked at writing, or maybe that was just the vibe he gave off, either way to say I hated it would be an understatement. The lecture ended with him finally getting to the point and telling the class that by the end of the year we had to turn in a book, or story, or whatever. This was going to be easy.

  
Finally, the clock read 12:00 and class was dismissed.

  
"About time," I thought.

  
I jumped out of my seat, eager to leave the classroom, eager to leave all the questioning stares of my classmates behind. I walked out towards the center of the school again. I wanted to meet at least one person today. Being alone all the time sucked, and with moving to a new town, I wanted to have at least one person to talk to. No one that I had sat in that room with for the past four hours had sparked any interest in me, plus if I did meet someone in that class it would mean I would have to see and probably talk to them everyday, and that was definitely not something I was willing to do.  
The Center, as I decided to call it (I know creative right?), was filled. All the tables were jam packed, and even the small patch of even ground was bustling with students. The fact that that many students even attended this school blew my mind. I wanted to meet someone, but not be surrounded by tons of people, so I worked my way through the crowd and ended up where the hill began its gentle incline. I looked up towards the tree line and saw someone sitting at the base of one of the oaks that marked the beginning of the forest. It was shady up there, the ground was dappled with light as it came through the leaves that would start turning and falling soon.

  
I walked slowly up the hill and parked myself directly across from the person I had seen from below. I say directly across, but in actuality I sat at the base of the tree that was somewhat close to the person.

  
After I had situated myself I looked up and was observed my, hopefully, new friend. It was a boy, or at least they looked like one. He was wearing a beige long sleeve shirt, (it was obviously too big for him) which sat slightly off center and revealed some of his collarbone and shoulder. His skin was lightly tanned, and his bones stuck out starkly. He was bent over a sketch pad and was carefully drawing something. He had bony fingers and tiny wrists. And his hair. Oh god, his hair was beautiful. It was parted slightly to the side and was much shorter on the bottom than it was on the top. It was black, but it seemed darker than black. Black as the night sky, but it caught the light, almost as if it were trying to put the stars and moon to shame.  
I couldn't help but stare, he was beautiful.

  
"Do you have a problem?" He asked suddenly looking up at me from his work.

  
"Shit, I thought," he noticed me. "Say something, don’t just sit here and look stupid, stupid!"

  
But at the same time I couldn't help but stare at his face. He had hollowed cheeks but full lips. His had gorgeous hooded eyes, that shone a sterling silver, and glimmered with defiance when he looked at me. His eyebrows were thin, but were a perfect match to his hair. He was gorgeous, to say the least.

  
By the time I realized how long it had been since he had asked me it was too late to save the situation, "No, it's just that we um well you have really pretty hair," I spat out, refusing to break eye contact, and trying to hide the fact that just the look of him was doing things to me.

  
He ran his hand through his hair so gracefully, before he looked at me and said, "Thanks," before he returned to his drawing. After a long silence he spoke again, "So what are you here for," he looked up from his work and my answer slipped away from me again. He had the voice of a angel.

  
"Uh, writing," I said not quite as confidently as I had hoped.

  
"Nice," he replied, he waited a beat before saying, "what do you like to write?"

  
I had been praying that he wouldn't ask that question.

  
I weighed my options and decided to tell the truth, "I like to write romances," I said, keeping my chin up and hoping that my confidence would keep him from thinking I was a sap.

  
"Oh," he said he paused for a while before answering quietly "You should let me read one you've written sometime."

  
"What?" I said astonished, "You like romance stories."

  
"Well yeah, doesn't everyone?"

  
"I guess," I replied, "I just didn't think- you don't really seem like the person who would like that sort of thing."

  
"Ah," he said looking me directly in the eyes for the first time since we had started talking, "I don't strike you as the soft type," he let out a dry chuckle, that had no implications of humor, "so what's your favorite?"

  
"Favorite what?" I asked.

  
"Romance novel, or whatever," he replied.

  
"Oh," I said realizing my mistake, "I don't know if it's technically romance or not, but I really like 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', but 'Between the Sheets' is for sure one of the best books I've read."

  
"I don't think I've ever read 'Between the Sheets'," he said tapping the eraser on his sketch pad.

  
"What about you?" I was interested to see the title he replied with.

  
"Well, my favorite tends to be the last one that I read, so I guess that it would have to be 'The Fault in Our Stars'," he said thoughtfully."

  
"I've heard good things about that one," I replied, "but I've never read it."

  
"I have a copy I could lend you," he replied looking straight at me.

  
"Really?" I asked, "If you want I have a copy of Sheets you could borrow."

  
"Sure," he said, "I could bring it tomorrow," the large clock struck one, "I have to go," he said snapping his sketchbook closed and standing up, "see you tomorrow, I guess?" he said ending it more like a question than a statement, before starting down the hill. Now that he was standing I could see that he was short, not that I couldn't have told that just from him sitting, but when he stood up it drew attention to how tiny he actually was. He was 5'2" at best. One thing that I hadn't noticed about him when he had been sitting though was his figure. He was wearing modest clothing, but, perhaps it was just the fact that he had a tiny waist, and normal sized hips and shoulders, but still it was fucking adorable.

  
"Yeah," I said I paused before saying, "Wait!"

  
He turned and looked at me seemingly irritated that he had been stopped.

  
"Sorry," I said lightly, "I didn't catch your name."

  
"That's because I didn't tell you," he said curtly, "It's Levi by the way. You?"

  
"Eren," I relied. He nodded at my name, as if he approved of it, before he turned and walked back towards the building.

  
Levi, I liked it.


	2. Excitement

I all but ran home after my conversation with Levi. My heart was pounding. I needed to find that book.

  
I sprinted up the rusty steps of my apartment complex and whipped out my keys as quickly as possible.

  
I couldn't find the right key, damn locks. I had always sucked at locks.

  
"I don't even have that many keys," I mentally screamed, "and I still can't find the right fucking one."

  
Finally the lock clicked open and I quite literally fell into my apartment. After kicking the door closed I stood up and ran to my living room. There were boxes of unpacked books still. I opened the first one, and dug through it. Nope. Half way through the second I found it.

  
It was a medium, blue book, with decently evocative cover art. Pretty plain overall, but the story itself was absorbing.  
"Wait!" I suddenly thought, I continued practically shouting at myself, "Did I seriously just run all the way home to get a book to bring to a guy I don't even fucking know? Seriously, Eren are you really that desperate?"

  
Yes, yes. I was that desperate. I mean he was cute and all but he wasn't really my type it wouldn't work out even if he did like me too. He seemed abrasive to say the least, I mean he had kind of scolded at me. Granted I had been staring at him. I still couldn't help myself. I ran through our entire conversation at least four times in my head, trying to convince myself that all of my growing affections were somehow misplaced, he was just a pretty face, a new face. I had lived in the same town for mey entire life before moving here, I was probably just intrigued by the fact that I had just met someone that I didn’t grow up with. That had to be it right?

  
Besides it wasn’t like he would return my affections, we had just met, and just by the look of him, I could tell he could probably get just about anyone he wanted with the snap of his fingers. Really though, he looked like he had just stepped off the page of a magazine.

  
By the time I had finished my little freak out session, it was nearing eleven at night. I had spent the entire last half of the day thinking about a boy that I just met. Damn, my life was pathetic. I decided that I should just forget about it and try not to get so worked up over what was probably nothing. I actually bothered with showering and shaving that night, before crawling into bed and slowly drifting off, my mind filled with a ravenette whose beauty challenged the night sky itself.

  
The next morning I woke up before my alarm for the first time in probably eight years. I was about to try to get in a few more winks, before I remembered what had happened yesterday. A light feeling returned to my stomach.

  
"Holy shit," I thought, it felt like I was going to throw up, what the hell is wrong with me?

  
I had felt like this before, well once before, in eighth grade. I somehow worked up the courage to ask a girl to the dance, and I swear to god it felt exactly like this. But I wasn’t a horny kid, well, for the most part, and I wasn’t about to ask him anywhere. This was just stupid, yet I couldn’t rid myself of the annoyance in my stomach. I hadn’t felt this way over anyone in years.

  
I couldn't help but take a little longer to get ready that morning. I didn't really pick out any specific clothes, but I actually put on ones that were clean today. Before I left, I checked my hair in the mirror, which was something I didn't usually do. I mused the brown locks, before deciding that this was as it was going to get. I sighed at the way my face looked back at me with an expression that looked to hopeful and happy to be forthcoming, before I grabbed my stuff and the book and practically ran all the way to the campus.

  
When I got to class, the professor took role and then started the lesson. I'm not even sure what it was about, I was watching the clock and waiting for it to strike twelve. I was too ager for my own good.

  
Some time during the class however, I decided that there was no point in getting worked over wherever feelings I was suddenly having, because in the end it wouldn’t matter. I could pursue him if I so chose, or these feelings would fade and I wouldn’t have to deal with them at all, simple as that.

  
When class did finally let out I sprinted for the door and was the first one out into the hallway. Ignoring the stares my classmates gave me as I practically shoved myself past them, I didn't have time to bother myself with their thoughts at the moment. I stopped by the bathroom one more time before exiting the building. Again I messed with my hair and picked at my clothes. Finally when I decided that I looked as could possibly at the moment, I worked my way through the school and into the Center. I looked passed all of the people in the grass, and at the tables, I scanned the tree line for a figure sitting next to a tree.

  
He was sitting in the exact same spot as yesterday. I walked in a way that now felt odd, despite having done it so many times before. I hadn’t actually tried to get with anyone since I decided to fix my life about a year ago, not that it didn’t happen on its own accord, but I hadn't been actively seeking anyone out for a long time. Even if was just for the night, and not forever, I hadn’t been interested in finding anyone. After feeling uncomfortable with my own whorish behavior for a few minutes, Levi and I finally ended up in the same position as yesterday.

  
"Hey," I said.

  
"Hey," he replied more friendlily than I believed he was capable of.

  
There was a lull in the conversation before Levi closed his sketchbook and focused all of his attention on me. I swear my heart didn't just skip a beat, it stopped.

  
"You look nice today," he said looking me up and down.

  
"Thanks," I replied putting a hand in the back of my neck, I had hoped he would comment because compared to the way I normally looked, I was doing damn good.

  
"So," he said turning towards his stuff, which was all in a small backpack, "I brought the book," he pulled a blue paperback book out of his backpack and offered it to me.

  
I took it and looked at the cover for a few moments, before handing the book that I had brought over. We talked a bit more about books, and really whatever else would keep the conversation going. Levi was quiet, he didn't really talk all that much, but when he did he really had strong opinions and interesting perspectives on almost everything. He was completely entrancing. I found it odd though that he hadn’t really shown any emotion when he spoke before, but when he spoke now, his feelings dominated his speech patterns. He didn’t need to ask for my attention when he spoke, because just the way he carried himself demanded that I pay attention to him and only him; the world around him melted away into nothingness, because when it was compared to him, it was nothing. He dominated his surroundings with his grace, and I was completely hooked on the way he spoke, moved, existed. The sound of the afternoon bell snapped me out of my trance.   
Levi looked over at the building and furrowed his eyebrows, before softening when he looked back at me and said, "I have to go," he stood up, "see you later."

  
"See ya later," I replied.

  
He chuckled (to be honest it sounded more like an amused grunt than anything) at my response and walked away. I couldn't help staring again as he walked towards the building. The world was muted by his presence and everything that he was seemed so impossibly saturated that it blocked out anything that could have detracted from his existence. He walked through the throngs of students without attracting so much as a sideways glance, and I was astounded that no one bothered to look at the small incarnation of what I knew was a god as he walked among them. At the same time however I was almost glad that I was the only one who noticed his grace. I was the only one that got to bask in the incredible radiance of Levi.

  
I stood and was able to walk home without accidentally walking into oncoming traffic, which proved to be more of a challenge than I had expected with how distracted I was.

  
I unlocked my apartment and walked inside, That went really well, I screeched in my head. I couldn't wait for tomorrow. I accepted the fact that I had what might have been a small crush on this person.

  
Once in my apartment I threw down my stuff, grabbed the book, flopped down on my sofa and started to read.

  
I read the whole thing that night. It was a good story. I cried. A lot. I loved it when I was able to cry at a good book, or movie for that fact. I didn't cry at a lot of things, but when I did, it was wonderful. It was wonderful to release feelings that were constantly building up inside me.

  
I checked my phone for the time. Almost midnight. I had spent my entire day reading. I secretly hoped the Levi had done the same thing.

  
The next day I beat Levi to, what I hoped would, our usual place. It stressed me out when he didn't show up right away, as it turned out being early to everything was a blessing and a curse.

  
Does he hate me? Was I too weird? Did I say something wrong? I asked myself thinking over all the conversations I had had with the ravenette. I was a loss for an answer.

  
"Hey," I finally heard a familiar voice call out.

  
"Hey," I said back. Trying not to sound like a desperate loser around him was hard, but I think I managed. I was really relieved to see him here. When I got a good look at him, he didn't look very good.

  
"You look like shit," I said, "you okay?"

  
"Thanks," he said sarcastically, "and yeah I'm fine," he paused for a while, but he didn't sit down, "Did you finish that book?"  
"No," I replied, I wanted to read it again, "did you?"

  
"No," he said sighing. No one talked for a painfully long time, but eventually Levi spoke up, "I'm not gonna be at school for the next few days."

  
Oh shit.

  
"But here," he reached down, picked up my hand and flipped it over so my palm was facing up. He grabbed a pen from his back pocket and clicked it open, "there's my phone number, maybe we could get coffee sometime, or something," he had written his phone number on my palm. His hands were so cold, but they left a burning feeling where they had touched my skin. I wanted to feel that way all over. I wanted to touch him, and for him to touch me back.

  
I looked at the number for a couple seconds, "Yeah, sounds good," I said trying to keep myself from leaping up and wrapping myself around him.

  
"Sweet," he replied, looking away from me, and over to the edge of the campus, "see you later," he finally said.

  
"Ok," I replied once again looking at the number written on my hand, "I'll call you later."

  
He walked away from me. I knew that something was off with him, but it felt wrong to pry into his personal life, especially because I had just met him. And to be honest it didn't seem like he wanted me to get into his personal business, anyway.


	3. Temptation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for all the wonderful comments and kudos that you guys have been leaving I really enjoy all the support. I wanted to start off this chapter with a little bit of explanation. First, there's no real plot to this story, it's more of an anthology of moments of Levi and Eren's lives together, so I appologize if it isn't always super coherent. Second, I have the story all completed and written out, so I will most likely get ahead of myself and post chapters quickly and at random intervals, sorry about it in advance! Third, I was thinking of making two endings to the story, because I have no idea if the first ending I've written is any good; please leave your thoughts in the comments. Thank you again for all your support, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

I walked home that day, trying to think of all the reasons he would have to miss class. I couldn't come up with a decent explanation, so I dropped the thought and returned it to the number on my hand. His handwriting was round and small. Even his handwriting was perfect. I was pathetic when it came to feelings. When I got home I entered the number into my phone, but I didn't want to wash the writing off of my hand, not yet, it seemed so precious, like he had departed something that he didn't often share.

  
After leaving it alone for a few more seconds, I picked up my phone. I couldn't text or call him now, he would be in class and I really didn't want to seem like the desperate that I really was, so I decided that I would text him in a day, just to make sure the number was legit. I hoped he wasn't a douchebag that would give someone a fake phone number just to tell them to piss off. 

  
I reread the book Levi had given me. It still made me cry, maybe even harder than the first time I had read it. I don't know why but the way Hazel and Gus interacted with such casual banter made the story seem even more tragic and beautiful. It was raw in a way. Like that was the way people would have acted, nothing was sugar coated or not told. I understood now why everyone liked it so much.

  
This time when I checked my phone it was only about ten, I had said I would wait until tomorrow to text Levi, but I couldn't resist any longer. I grabbed my phone and sent him a quick text.

  
_Hey! This is Eren, this is Levi right?_  
10 minutes later he replied.

  
_Yeah it's me. I've got your number now. Thanks._

  
That was it. The conversation dropped after that, I didn't send anything. But I didn't receive anything either. I sighed and flopped back down on my couch. He did say that he was going to be gone the next couple days right? So maybe he's just busy or something. Yeah. He's probably just busy.

  
In the meantime though I decided to do a little Internet stalking. I pulled my laptop over to me and flipped open the lid in a new tab I opened up Facebook I searched his name (I didn't know his last name so I just searched Levi) a bunch of accounts came up, but none were his so I decided to seat other social media sites. After I had exhausted all of the ones that I had an account on, I got fed up and just straight up googled his name.

  
A bunch of stuff came up for that. The school roster came up as one of the first results but I didn't care about that so I skipped it. After that there were newspaper clippings that described a local artist, and pages that documented him selling his paintings, but there was one site in particular that caught my attention. It had pictures of a local art show. I clicked on the link and it opened up a large page with tons of photos on it.

  
All the photos were of the artists with their paintings, the price and a brief description of both the artist and the painting. Levi's was about halfway down the page. The picture was obviously taken without his knowledge. He was leaning up against the wall next to his painting. He was looking away from the camera at something that wasn't in the frame. The left side of his face was facing the camera, and I could see the remnants of a fading bruise on his cheek. It made me think about why he was missing class for the rest of the week, did that have something to do with it? In the photo all of his features seemed softer, he looked bittersweet. He seemed so much more approachable. He looked even more beautiful. He was wearing dark khakis and a light button up shirt. I hadn’t had time to imagine him in formal wear, but I was not in the least disappointed with the reality. The painting he was standing next to was large maybe 6 by 7 feet. It depicted a person, a girl, she was dancing. Her hand was extended towards the foreground while her body and other had stretched towards the background. It looked like she was turning. She was set on a dark blue, almost black, backdrop. It was beautiful. Perfect. It was slightly blurred around the edges giving the painting a surreal look. It was one of the best paintings I had ever seen, not that I was much an art enthusiast though.

  
There was a picture of just him under the picture of him with the painting. This one was posed. He wasn't looking directly at the camera, a sort of half smile reached his face. The picture was in black and white, so all of his features became more defined. His eyes were the same color in black and white as they were in color photos.  
The description below was as follows:

  
"Levi (pictured above): artist of the painting The Dancer is currently attending school at Cardeisle University. This painting was created with oil paints on canvas, and sold for a total of $1,342."

  
That was it. Nothing more. Other artists had much more about them, but I assumed that that was all Levi had told them. He didn't even have a last name listed. That seemed to fit him, keeping to himself, keeping quiet.  
I was a little upset that I couldn't see Levi for the next few days after my stalking, but I still fell asleep uncharacteristically quick, with the thoughts of him painting beautiful things covering up the voices that told me to stay up.   
The next few days passed without much glamour. Levi wasn't there so I ate lunch at the edge of the forest alone. I was used to being alone, but this time it seemed more painful than before. It was like something was wrong and missing, and it made me sad. Was I seriously missing a guy that I had met just a couple days ago? I was too desperate for any kind of attention.

  
I hadn't seen Levi in a week, and I thought I was about to break, when I got a text message.

  
_Hey. Can you come out for coffee soon?_

  
_Sure. When?_ I asked back trying to contain my excitement.

  
_Right now. I'll meet you at the cafe near the school._ He replied.

  
_The Blue Moon Cafe?_ I asked, I wanted to make sure I showed up at the right spot.

  
_Sure_. He said back.

  
I didn't need anymore confirmation, I was already on my way. I lept up and grabbed my keys before running out of the door. I passed my car on the way out. I had a white Sedan. It was used and beat up, but it still got me where I needed to go.   
If Levi and I were actually talking about the same place, it was only about a 2 minute walk from the school. I had never been there, and I never saw anyone in there, but I had walked by it a couple times just in passing. To be honest it didn't look like much. It was obviously old and had a quaint sort of feeling to it. It felt like the place your grandma would go to get coffee, after her husband died. It was tainted with a sort of melancholy, I understood why Levi had chosen it. It was so much like him.

  
It was about 11 when I left. I hadn't stalled or anything, it was just that late. It was fall, so walking at night was brisk, but it had a certain magical feeling to it. Like the trees and leaves were alive around you. I could almost hear them calling to me, begging to keep living. But winter would come, and the leaves would fall dead from the trees. They couldn't know that calling out to me would do them no good.

  
Once I arrived I saw that The Blue Moon Cafe was still open, and I saw a familiar face sitting at one of the tables.

  
Inside was like something straight out of a movie. The walls were textured and painted in a sort of cream color, and trimmed with dark wood. All the tables and counters were different colored woods, and seemed recycled. There was a wall across from the counter that sold the coffee that was covered in bookshelves and miscellaneous abstract paintings. Levi was the only one in the shop at the time, and to be honest he looked even worse than before.

  
He seemed paler than before, and everything seemed to stick out more. His face looked gaunt and lifeless, nothing like the god like radiance I had seen before. It looked like he hadn't slept for a week. He was sitting at a table for two. He had one coffee cup in his hand, and another was sitting in front of the seat across from him. Levi's silver eyes were cast down looking, at his coffee cup.

  
He didn't react when I walked through the door. Only when I actually sat down in the opposite seat did he lift his head and look in my direction. His eyes were red and somewhat swollen, like he had been crying before he came here.

  
"You look like shit," I said.

  
"Thanks," he said back expressionlessly.

  
"Seriously though," I said in a tone that sounded like I meant business, "are you okay? What's going on."

  
"You're worried about me?" He asked looking me straight in the eyes.

  
"Yeah," I must have said it a bit too aggressively, "is that a problem?"

  
"No, no," he said looking back down at the cup he had in front of him, "it's just that I don't think anyone has ever done that before."

  
“Done what?” I was slow I had to admit it.

  
“Worried about me,” he replied. Maybe he was just being melodramatic, or perhaps he meant it. Either way the statement was enough to stun me into silence.

  
"Were you crying?" I asked. I knew it was a risky question, but I had to know.

  
He didn't answer. I took that as a yes.

  
"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

  
"No," he replied, his voice sounded distant, "I just wanted someone to sit with."

  
"Okay," I returned leaning back in my chair, and looking at him worriedly. We had practically just met, yet he had called me in the middle of the night to just come and sit with him. For the first time I wondered if he had any other friends or if, like me, we were all we had. I had always assumed that he had other friends, I mean he was intriguing, friendly (for the most part), and beautiful, I couldn’t see him so alone, but perhaps my intuition was wrong.

  
This was a completely different person than I had met a few days before. He was not the strong spirited person I had met at school. He looked damaged, lucid, it wasn't hard to see the hurt on his face.

  
Several minutes later he said, "I finished the book you gave me, it's at my apartment if you wanna come get it tonight."  
Was he inviting me to his apartment? This late at night?

  
"Yeah sure," I said getting a little bit too excited, "I'll walk you home."

  
After a few minutes of silently sitting together drinking coffee, we got up and exited the building. I thanked Levi for the coffee and we both agreed that we should go there again sometime.

Levi's apartment wasn't too far away from the school either. From the cafe to his place was about a 15 minute walk. It was cold out by now and I was glad that I had worn a heavier jacket. Levi hadn't, and as much as he tried to hide it, it was obvious that he was cold. I could see the way the light breeze whipped through the fabric of his shirt, and the way he looked like he was already frozen.

  
He lived in and old rundown apartment complex. It was in one of the oldest parts of town, it felt creepy. Once I actually got into the Levi's apartment it wasn't so bad. The walls were painted white, but a lot of them were painted on each was was pretty much a different mural some were unfinished, there were canvasses (used and unused) lying around his apartment and many covered the walls, not to mention the various paints and paint brushes that littered the ground. From the looks of it, his life consisted of his work, and not much else He didn't have very much furniture, at least in the portion of his place that I saw. There was an obviously used couch in front of a small TV in the corner of the room. He had a few book shelves and an old record player in the opposite corner, other than that the room was bare.

  
"I'll go get your book," Levi mumbled, as he walked towards the small hallway that I assumed branched off into a bedroom, bathroom and possibly a kitchen.

  
I didn’t know what to do as he looked for my posession, so I walked over to one of the bookshelves and found that he had a couple of old movies and shows. The one that caught my eye the most was _I Love Lucy_ I hadn't seen this show in ages, my mom and I had used to watch it together on the late nights when we would have to wait for my dad to come home. I pulled it off the shelf and looked it over.

  
"We can watch that, if you want," Levi said from behind me.

  
I jumped, he was so quiet, but the thought of watching an old show that held so many fond memories was almost irresistible. Again this made me really excited, it was almost like a date. I don't know why but I felt like I couldn't do that. What if I thought it was a date and Levi was just being nice and didn't actually feel the same way? I couldn't do that to myself.  
"I think I should actually head home," I said as I stood up, "it's getting pretty late."

  
"We don't have class tomorrow, though," Levi replied as he walked over to me and handed me back my book.  
Shit I forgot it was Friday today.

  
He was so close to me, I was nervous now, "Uh, okay then sure," I said.

  
Levi's couch wasn't big. That was still no explanation for the way we were sitting. He had set up the movie and the he had come and say directly next to me. Seriously he must have felt the same way as I did, or he was seriously fucking with my feelings.

  
The show was as good as I remembered, and I was engrossed, but it seemed like Levi was looking past the TV. He had curled his knees up to his chest and was chewing on his fingernails. He was usually so focused, it was weird to see him so distracted.

  
"Hey, Levi," I said.

  
"Yeah," he replied, his voice was distant again.

  
"How long has it been since you slept?" I asked.

  
He shrugged and didn't say anything after that.

  
After a while I noticed that he was getting close to his nail bed and it was starting to freak me out. I was squeamish about things like that.

  
"Hey," I said reaching over and pulling his hand away from his mouth, he didn't resist, "it's bad to chew on your nails, you should stop."

  
"Sorry," he replied and went back to staring blankly at the TV screen. Soon his eyelids started to droop and it was almost painful watching him try to stay awake. Eventually, though, he slowly laid down and fell asleep quickly. His head was on the armrest of the couch and his feet were still curled up and touching his chest.

  
I didn't want to wake him, so I carefully got up, turned off the TV, and walked towards what I assumed was the bedroom. I was correct. I walked into his room and grabbed one of the blankets off of his bed. I didn't stay very long, I felt like I was intruding already, I didn't want to feel worse because I had loitered in his bedroom, uninvited. I walked back out to the living room, the lights were all off so I had to step carefully.

  
I walked back over the couch and looked at Levi. His features were soft, he looked so young. It occurred to me that I had no idea how old he was, he could be younger than me. I didn't know exactly how that made me feel. What if he was years younger than me. I didn’t want to get caught up in all of that if it was the truth.

  
But he looked to peaceful. After a while of contemplating what to do I thought, "Fuck it," and crawled onto the couch next to him, before covering us both with the blanket. I would indulge myself just this once.


	4. Philosophy

It always felt weird sleeping with anyone, let alone a person I didn't even know that well. I wasn't going to leave though. By the time Levi fell asleep, I was too tired to walk home, so either way I had decided to stay the night here.

  
This was just the option that I liked best.

  
I finally fell asleep to the smell of paint and Levi's shampoo.

  
I woke up before Levi. It was morning, and earliest rays of light were streaming through one of the only windows in his apartment. Somehow during the night Levi and I had moved around, so he was now laying on top of me, his arms were around my neck and he had even managed to lace his fingers into my hair. I, on the other hand, had managed to wrap my hands around his waist. We had intertwined ourselves and I wasn’t going to lie, it felt perfect. Lying here with him felt more right than lying with anyone else ever had. The top of his head was just about at my chin, but his feet still didn't reach past mine. He didn't move, he was still fast asleep. I enjoyed being so close to him.

  
I took in everything around me. Even if he didn't like me back I was still going to enjoy and remember this moment. Levi seemed like the person that would have a low body temperature, but he was really warm when we were here together. His hair was perfectly tousled, it covered his face just slightly, and the rest was perfectly pieced to frame his features. God dammit he was even perfect in his sleep. He had a certain smell too. He smelled like oil paints, and paint thinner, but there was also a slight aroma of cigarettes. I instantly wondered if he smoked. There was so much for me to learn about him, it made me want to fall in love with him, I wanted to learn about all that things that seemed to keep him up at night, all the things that made him the person that he was.

  
As I was looking at him his eyelids started to flutter open. He didn't move at first he just stared straight ahead. He still looked really tired. Eventually his grip tightened on me and his hands started to move against my scalp, before stopping again. He was asleep once more. He had reacted to me though, and positively. Even in his half conscious state, he had held onto me. That had to mean something.

  
There were no words to express how happy I was at that moment. I eventually fell back asleep too. Enjoying the warmth of the small gesture.

  
After a while Levi actually woke up. He started when he noticed the position we were in and shoved himself off of me, he was almost too forceful and, honestly, it kind of hurt. He gave me a glare that said much more that words could.

  
"Uh I-I um," I stuttered. I got up quickly, still trying to blurt out some lame excuse, grabbed my book and tried to exit his apartment quickly. I stopped in the doorway and looked back at him. His eyes hadn't left me, his face expressionless. I tried again to explain myself but all I could do was open my mouth, no words would come out. I elected to cut my losses and leave. Once on the other side of the door. I collapsed against it and buried my head in my hands. I had lost all of my cool, I had probably just blown the only chance I had with the person that I so desperately wanted.

  
Eventually I dragged my ass out of Levi's apartment complex and back to mine.

  
I wanted to die.

  
I had probably just ruined any chance I had with the one person I had ever had real feelings for and it stung like a bitch.

  
Fuck. Why was I such a screw up? Why did I have to ruin everything for myself? God fucking dammit why was I so hopeless?  
Levi and I didn't talk for the rest of the weekend.

  
On Monday I sat down at our usual spot, Levi wasn't there. _Fuck you Eren. You always ruin these sort of things you're a hopeless romantic_ , I thought to myself.

  
"Hey."

  
God fucking dammit. I didn't know which was worse. Being ignored by the one person I had feelings for, or having to explain my dumb ass to the one person I had feelings for.

  
"Look," I started, ignoring his greeting, "about the other day, I'm really sorry I didn't mean-"

  
"Don't be sorry," he cut me off, "to be honest, I probably needed that."

  
What?

  
We didn't talk for a while, I had the chance once more to admire him in silence. He still was captivating, and even though I could feel the silence slowly suffocating me, it felt like I could breathe everytime I looked at him. He looked better, rested and less weak. The light, the spark that I had seen the first time I'd spoken with him was there in his eyes. It may have been dimmer, but at least it was still there. He didn't look hopeless. 

  
"Eren?" Levi asked.

  
"Yeah," I said praying that he wouldn't ask me about anything that I had done.

  
"You know we have next week off," he started, I nodded, "well, there's this big art show coming up and I really have to work on a piece this week, but being alone in my apartment for so long really fucking sucks. So I was wondering if you want to come over and just hang out? You could bring work or something, we don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to, I just don’t want to be alone all week."

  
_What?_

  
"Uh," I replied, "sure,” I was so unsure, after my royal fuck up, he still wanted to be around me? He still wanted to be around me.

  
Levi face lifted slightly at this, "Great, thank you so much," the bell rang, "Well, see you around, I guess?"

  
"Sure," I replied. He had phrased it more like a question than a statement. 

 

He had to fucking know that I liked him now right? Or was he just some grade-A douchebag tease?

  
The rest of the week passed by normally, Levi's and I would meet up under the tree and talk about whatever the hell kept our conversation going. I was afraid for the next week. I would be with Levi. In his apartment. All fucking week. I couldn't blow it this time.

  
Finally, the last day of school came and went. I was officially nervous. I hadn’t been nervous over anyone in a long time. No one had ever mattered this much to me. The next day I walked over to Levi's house at about noon. I wanted to seem like I didn't care, I had decided that instead of being a sap, I was going to play hard to get.

  
I walked up to his apartment. Either he was playing music really loud or he had really thin walls, maybe both. I knocked on the door.

  
I head several crashes flowed by several "fucks" and other log strings of profanity before the short ravenette opened the door. The smell of paint thinner wafted over me. It wasn't overpowering, but it was just strong enough to be annoying.

  
"What are you doing here?" Levi asked breathlessly, he looked genuinely confused. He was wearing the usual over sized clothing, which were now smeared with paint and cleaners. There was even paint in his hair. It stood out starkly against his dark hair. He now even had his own stars to bring to the competition his hair was holding with the night sky. 

  
"You asked me to come over here this week," I replied. I was afraid that he had forgotten about me.

  
"Oh shit, is it Saturday already? Fuck," he said putting his hand on his head, "right, right, come in," he opened the door wider. As he walked back in, he shut one of his sketchbooks quickly. He started mumbling to himself about how many days he had until the show, and what he needed to do to finish on time. I was painfully aware of the fact that he was talking to himself and not to me.

  
I stepped into his apartment for the second time. I had brought my writing stuff figuring that I would have some time to work too. Levi was right, working alone was shitty. Everything was the same as the last time I had been in here, accept now I could make out what was on the canvasses that were still scattered around his apartment. He drew people. Lots of them. Almost every canvas in that room had a person on it. Some were close ups, some were from far away, but they were all amazing. They all looked almost like they were about to jump off the fabric and into my lap. Levi was beautiful, yes, but he was talented too, and I would be lying if I said that didn't make me want him even more. I wondered if he had drawn me. I had only known him for a very short time, but I silently hoped I had wormed my way into his thoughts as he had mine. 

  
"You can change the music if you want," Levi said returning to his canvas. I didn't look at him, instead I went to the stereo, which was just below the TV. He didn't have an iPod or anything, but he had tons of CDs. He was listening to some foreign music, which I did like from what I had just heard, but it was slow and romantic, which given my situation wouldn’t be good to write to. I looked at everything he had and decided that putting on something acoustic would be best, for me at least. As the music started I walked over to his couch and plopped myself down with my laptop and began to write. Levi was working on another large canvas. This one was about 5' by 4', he was just barely taller than it.

  
After a few hours of not really having a conversation, I closed my laptop and walked over to where he was working. This canvas depicted a person, female by the looks of it, sitting against a tree. But the person wasn't the focus of the painting, she was more of the background. The foreground was filled with Wonderland-esc plants. It was adorned with trees that formed a colorful canopy over the even more colorful foliage on the forest floor, vines dipped down, and flowers reached up from the ground. It was expertly drawn and beautiful. Most of it wasn't painted, but it was still one of the most jaw-dropping pieces I had seen.

  
"Do you like it?" Levi asked stopping and looking at me.

  
"Yeah," I said. I was breathless, "it's amazing."

  
"Thanks."

  
Our conversations were just like that for the week. Short, sweet, and to the point. I didn't mind it so much. It was nice, and I could tell Levi was the type of person that could enjoy company in silence. Levi liked music and was bad with words, often letting whatever he put on speak for him. He was however an excellent singer, I had caught him more than once softly singing along to the melody that drifted from the speakers. I couldn’t get over him. The days we spent together had given me a lot of time to observe him, and I was willing to admit that I liked him a lot. He had a certain poise to him, razor sharp focus on whatever he was working on, and the kindest words mingled with pointed sarcasm and humor.

  
It was finally the last day before the art show. The time had gone so fast. The painting was astounding. As expected. It showcased bright, brilliant colors and fauna that only existed in Levi's imagination. It felt like a gateway into his mind, and honestly I wished that I was the only one who would get to see it. It felt like he had put a part of himself into the painting. A part of himself that I hoped I would be the only one privy to. I wished I knew more about him, and about the wonderland he had created for the world to see.

  
Levi was putting the finishing touches on the painting when he said, "You should come to the show tonight."

  
"No, I don't think that would be a good idea," I said I was still trying to work the "hard to get" angle, "I don't know that much about art, and I'm broke, so."

  
"Come on, " he said, "Brian Lemmings and Katie Summers will be there."

  
"I don't think you heard me, I know shit about art, I've never heard of either of them," I replied (that was true).

  
"You will soon, their works are exceptional. They're going to be everywhere soon."

  
I loved hearing him talk about things he was passionate about. His face would light up, and his tone would get softer, it was captivating.

  
I didn't say anything for a while.

  
"They'll be free wine and food," he said interrupting my thoughts.

  
"I'm underage," I said bluntly (also true). Not that that had ever and would ever stop me if I had decided that I wanted it, but I wasn’t going to tempt myself with addiction, especially in front of someone whose opinion mattered to me.

  
"Seriously?" He asked turning and looking at me.

  
"Yeah, I'm 19," I said returning his gaze.

  
"Well," he said, "I don't drink either so I guess we will get along pretty well."

  
"Hmm," I replied, “I guess so.”

  
Levi didn't talk for a while so I spoke up, "If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"

  
"21," he replied nonchalantly.

  
"Ah," I said. He didn't look 21 at all. That might have been because of his height, but he also had such a childish face. He had smooth skin without any creases or marks otherwise. For the most part at least. He did have a few light scars around his hairline, but I would never admit that I had seen them, I knew what it was like to try and hide imperfections and I wasn’t about to point anyones’ out.

  
I waited several more minutes before finally saying, "Fine, I guess I'll come."

  
I swear he almost smiled at that. The rest of the afternoon was a blur for me. I helped Levi load his painting into my car (he didn't have one). After that was all said and done, he sent me home and told me to clean myself up and dress nicely before coming back. I did as I was told, and ended up wearing a black collared shirt and black jeans. I tried my best to look presentable, but with the limited wardrobe and funds that I had, I always kind of looked like I had just rolled out of bed and thrown something on, despite my intentions.

  
I drove back to Levi's apartment at about 4:00, the show started at 5:30. I walked up the stairs and knocked on Levi's door. As he opened the door, I got to see what he was wearing. He had on a black jacket. It wasn't leather but it looked like it should be. It zipped up the front, and had two portions of the collar that folded out into neat triangles on his chest. It had pockets, and fit him so well it should have been a sin. Underneath was the same light colored shirt that I had seen him wearing in the picture of him with his other painting, not that that I was going to tell him I’d seen it. He was also wearing the same dark khakis. It was the first time that I had seen him wear clothes that actually fit him (in person), and I wasn’t going to lie, he looked good.

  
"Ready?" He asked leaning up against his door frame ever so slightly.

  
"Yeah," I managed to choke out, before turning away. I didn't want to seem creepy, getting caught staring for the umpteenth time. He looked like he had been sent from heaven, I swear. How could anyone look so perfect? His clothing hugged every curve of his body, and as he walked down the hall ahead of me, I got to enjoy the view in its full glory. I would have pinned him to the wall right there if I hadn't been trying to mind my manners. 

  
The whole car ride was awkward, I couldn't keep my eyes off Levi, and I think he noticed but had just decided not to say anything about it. He had to know how I felt by now right?


	5. Indulgence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at this! Two chapters in one day! I will have to start restraining myself with these updates. Anyway, more characters are introduced in this chapter, and I hope I did it well thank you for all the nice comments I really love hearing from all you guys reading this!

We got to the art show on time. It was held in a small building in a park. If it could even be called that. It was more of a garden enclosure. It was large and square, without a roof. The center was filled with what appeared to have once been a garden, that had long since fallen into neglect. Tall grass and vines had taken over the place. There was one wall, it stretched around the perimeter of the garden, and had a four foot wide boardwalk extending from it. There were pillars places periodically, that held up a vineyard like "roof." The pillars and ceiling had strands of fairy lights wrapped around them. It was beautiful. Because of the cold, the grass had turned yellow and all of the flowers and vines were wilting and beginning to die. Levi had run off to get a volunteer that would help us move the painting to where it needed to go, which left me alone in the area. There were people quietly milling about, no guests were there yet, just the artists and the volunteers that were helping them set up. Despite being surrounded by people, I felt so isolated. Like the entire world was enclosed within the walls of the garden, and my entire life filled the empty space. Was this what it was like to live in the moment? I was so aware of the fact that I was alive.

  
"Spacey at all, Eren?" Levi asked sarcastically. I turned to look at him, and his face wore his signature poker face.

  
"Yeah," I said chuckling, "it's really pretty here."

  
"Yeah," Levi agreed, "just wait until it gets dark, it gets better."

  
A slight breeze blew, and the late October cold sent a chill through my body. I couldn't help but shivering.

  
"Are you cold?" Levi asked looking at me with a somewhat concerned expression.

  
"Yeah," I said, "I would have brought a jacket, if I knew it was going to be outside."

  
"Sorry," Levi said. Pausing for a moment before looking at me, “You can wear my jacket if you want, I’m not cold, and I won’t need it for the rest of the show,” he had already started unzipping the jacket.

  
I almost laughed at his offer, there was no way in hell that would ever fit me, but I was thankful for the offer, “No,” I said actually chuckling a little bit, “but thanks.” I caught his eyes and held them for a few moments.

  
I remembered that people say the eyes are the gateway to the soul, I had never really understood the phrase until that moment. Perhaps it was because I had caught him off guard or, perhaps he had just let his walls down in front of me, but I swore I saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before. The way he looked at me so innocently, he looked broken but so put together. I could pinpoint the moment I fell for him. 

  
“Okay,” he said placing the garment on the bench that sat opposite of his painting.

  
The sunlight was starting to fade quickly, and the sky was beginning to turn a deep shade of purple. We walked around the perimeter of the building and watched as the show came together. It was almost too dark to see anything now. Suddenly the fairy lights were turned on and re-illuminated the space. Levi had been right, it was even more beautiful now. We both stood and watched the sky a bit longer.

  
"They're gonna start letting people in soon," he started, "I'm going to head over there," he said pointing back to where his painting had been set up, "feel free to join me if you like."

  
"Do you have to hang out there all night?" I asked hoping I could have at least a little time with him to myself.

  
"No," he replied, "just until I sell my painting, if it gets sold. It makes it easier for the buyer and the seller if I just stay right there for a while."

  
"Okay," I said in a soft voice, "I'll see you there in a bit."

  
"Okay," he said, turning and walking away from me.

  
I walked around the perimeter of the building with the crowd of onlookers. All the paintings were beautiful, but Levi's really stood out the most. Even from far away you could tell his was more beautiful than the rest. He wasn’t afraid of color, and that stood out more than anything else. He wasn't afraid to make it look liarger than life, there was no fear of abandoning reality in his painting. 

  
As I approached, Levi was sitting on a bench directly across from his work. No one (at least none that I had seen) had been stopping for any artists. I approached him and sat down on the other side of the small bench.

  
"Did you get a chance to look around?" Levi asked turning to look at me.

  
His gaze still made my heart skip a beat, "Yeah, there are a lot of talented people around here."

  
"Yeah," Levi agreed turning his gaze back to his painting.

  
We didn't talk for a while. I noticed there was a woman walking down the pathway taking pictures of all of the works, as he approached Levi's painting I began to worry. If she planned on selling the photographs then I would be upset. 

  
"Is she allowed to do that?" I asked lowly.

  
"Who?" Levi said looking at me again.

  
"Her?" I said pointing at the woman with the camera.

  
"Yeah," he said directing his attention at him, "that's Malory. The photographer. She's at all of these."

  
"Oh," I said, it still made me uneasy.

  
She approached and Levi and I continued to talk, this time about books though. It was pitifully obvious that Levi avoided talking about feelings, it made it easy to talk to him, but I was becoming brave enough that I did want to talk about feelings with him, even if it meant getting rejected I couldn’t bring myself to stay silent any longer.

  
"What are you writing, right now?" He asked.

  
"It's just a short story for class," I replied, "because it is due close to Halloween, I decided to write about a monster that gets trapped here, but instead of being all awesome and scary, it's just awkward. I tried to write in a Rocky Horror Picture Show-esc style, and I have realized that imitating a writing style is a lot harder than it seems."

  
Levi snorted in amusement, and a little smile crept into his face. He corners of his mouth turned up just slightly, and he cast his head slightly downward. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen all week.

  
_Click_.

  
Levi turned his head from me to the photographer, "Mallory," he said in a light hearted tone, the smile lingering for a few seconds longer.

  
The photographer giggled as she looked down at the tiny display screen, "It's a good one!"

  
She turned the camera around so Levi could see. He made a sound of approval. She then turned the camera towards me. It was a good picture. I was smiling and looking directly at Levi, I had one hand in the air slightly and the other was resting on my lap. Levi, was seated with his legs outstretched, like he was reclining on the bench, and his feet were crossed at the ankle. His right hand was propped up on the armrest, and looked like it was holding an invisible cigarette, again I wondered if he smoked. He was looking in my direction, but his head was slightly down. He had on his beautiful smile. It wasn't a toothy grin like ones that everyone was forced to make for school pictures, it was kind of a what-the-fuck-are-you-doing smile. To be completely honest it was raw, the entire picture was. I was looking at genuine emotions, and I really liked the way it felt.  
Malory then snatched the camera back and looked at the screen with a large grin on her face.

  
"Thanks," Levi said.

  
"No prob," she replied, overly happily, "are you going to the show in Midtown next week?"

  
"Maybe," Levi replied, "I haven't been keeping up with all this," he said gesturing towards the wall in front of us.

  
"Well you have been taking classes, haven't you?"

  
"Yeah," he replied, “it keeps me busy enough for two."

  
"Well," she said starting to walk away from us, "I will be there, if you decide to come we'll have to talk more."

  
"Will do," Levi replied turning his head back to his painting.

  
Levi waited until she was out of earshot before saying, "If the picture doesn't get bought tonight, that picture will sell it."

  
"Why," I asked wondering why a picture would sell it.

  
"Because you're in it," he replied, looking at me and putting back on that small shy smile I had just seen.

  
I didn't know what to say. It felt like I had just been kissed and punched in the face at the same time. Levi had looked away from me, but I could see that a light pink color was dusted across his cheeks. After about a minute of that painful silence between us a portly old man walked up to Levi.

  
"Is this yours?" He asked, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the painting. He sounded like his cheeks were getting in the way of him talking, I wished he would stop.

  
"Yes," Levi said standing up. He barely reached the height of the man's shoulders.

  
"How much are you asking for it?" He asked. I didn’t want him to be here, I had just had the opportunity to tell Levi about myself, and he had interrupted it.

  
I tuned out their conversation at that point and replayed the words Levi and I had just exchanged.

_  
Because you're in it._

  
Did that mean he thought I was attractive? Did he like me back? Did he just think I added to the picture? What did that line mean? He had blushed afterward so it had to mean something, right?

  
"Earth to Eren," Levi said in a sassier tone than I had believed he was capable of.

  
"Yeah," I replied shaking my head to clear my thoughts.

  
"Do you want to go somewhere? Other than here, I mean."

  
"Uh, sure," I replied, "don't we need to help that guy get the painting, wherever?"

  
"No," he said turning to look at it, "at the end of the show one of the volunteers will help him."

  
He didn't look away from the painting, "They hung it too high," he said scowling and turning to walk away.

  
I followed him, and spoke up, "Maybe it's just because you're-" I stopped myself.

  
_Shit, shit, shit, shit. How do I fix this?_ I screamed in my head.

  
"Short?" He asked looking up at me and raising an eyebrow. I turned to face him, he wasn't glaring at me, in fact he looked like he was more interested in the fact that I hadn't finished my sentence than the fact that I had almost called him short.

  
"You aren't offended by that?" I asked, kind of shocked.

  
"No, why would I be?"

  
"Well, it's just that most of the, uh," I cut myself off again.

  
"Short," Levi replied bluntly.

  
I flinched slightly at his words, "Yeah, people I know get really angry when you call them short."

  
"Eren, why would I get offended?" He asked, looking up at me, "I mean, look at me. I'm 5'3" on a good day, in the right shoes. Trust me I'm well aware that I'm short."

  
He had a smug look on his face.

  
"Uh," I stuttered for a reply.

  
"And, I mean, it's not like you're calling me Donald Trump or anything, you just called me short, which I am, so I have really no right to be offended."

  
"I guess I never thought of it like that," I replied.

  
"Do you wanna head out?" he asked.

  
"You want to go home already?" I said, kind of shocked.

  
"No, I don't want to go home, I'm just saying that there are lots of more interesting things to do than watch old geezers go shopping."

  
"What time is it?" I asked still trying to work that hard to get angle.

  
"Don't worry about the time," he said, "the night is young, and so am I. So, we should have a little fun while we have the chance."

  
He was looking me in the eye. God dammit. I couldn't say no, "Sure," was eventually the answer I spit out, "but last time I checked you were older than me."

 

He sighed, "Yes, but 21 is not old."

 

"You sure about that?" I said shoving his shoulder. We were getting all sorts of glances as we walked towards the exit of the garden. 

 

"Absolutely," he replied, and I caught a hint of a spark in his eyes. He had seemed all well to do before, but all in all, I didn't really know him. But I saw something in him right then and there that told me he was a force to be reckoned with. He was a hurricane, and I had just felt the wind start to pick up. 

 

"Then, Mr. I'm-so-young, why don't you race me to the car?" I said leaning over closer to him.

 

"Are you six?" He asked laughing. 

 

"Yes," I replied before shouting out all too loudly and quickly, "One, two, three, go!"

 

We both practically ran out through the door, and I realized I could beat him if I tried. He had short legs, and trailed not too far behind me the entire way. I beat him to the car.

 

We both ere bent over and trying to catch our breath, "If-" Levi started, "If being old means I never have to race you again, I'll gladly be old."

 

I laughed, "Are you just saying that because you're afraid I would beat you again?"

 

"Yes," he said standing up straight, "I don't think my pride could take losing to the way you run again."

 

"Excuse me," I paused, "I look like a majestic eagle when I run, take some lessons, bitch."

 

"Sure, if a majestic eagle looked like a giraffe on stilts, then yes you nailed it, bitch," he cocked one of his eyebrows at me and I could see that spark in his eyes again. He was a freak, I could already tell.

 

I offered Levi the keys, but he told me he didn't drive, so I took the wheel. Once we were both in the car, and driving away from the show I asked Levi, "So where are we going?"

  
"Have you ever been to a frat party before?" He asked me with a smirk.

  
"No," I replied, "did you get invited to one?"

  
"Hell no, that's why we're going, my friends are gonna meet us there. We're gonna crash it."

  
"Sounds good where is it?" I could help the excitement in my voice. It had been so long since I'd been to a party. 

  
"Chlards University," he replied.

  
I drove down the highway, and Levi worked the radio, there was nothing good on, so he ended up plugging in my phone and listening to the music I had.

  
The town was split into two parts by large hills. There were several roads that wet over that hills that were a lot closer than the one I had chosen, but I really wanted some alone time with Levi, plus there was no one else on the highway so I had free reign of all the lanes.

  
We played the music way too loud, but it was nice. I sort of danced in my seat, and Levi sang along to what he knew. He was a really good singer. We must have looked like idiots. I wondered if the cars that passed us could tell I was mad about the boy sitting next to me. It felt so obvious, so natural I think it would have been impossible to miss. 

  
In the middle of the chorus of one of the more soft songs I had, Levi looked up at the roof of my car and noticed the sun roof.  
"Does that open?" He practically had to shout to get his voice to me.

  
"Yeah," I said pulling open the cover and unlocking it. Levi pushed it open the rest of the way and started to angle himself so he could stand out of it. He hadn't been buckled in in the first place. I wasn't either. He grabbed the sides of the window and pulled his upper body out through it. He was standing on the center console of my car, and his waist just cleared the top of my car. I couldn't see his upper body, but I'm sure it would have been a pleasant view. I was listening to the music, but in the very background I could hear Levi singing along. Even though I couldn't hear him that well it was still adorable. The final chorus of the song came on and I actually heard Levi over the wind and the music. I started to sing along as well at this point.  
God dammit I had fallen so hard for him. I could agree with Hazel at this point. Falling in love happens a slowly at first, then all at once.

  
Finally, I turned the last time, and the lights of the other side of town came into view. Levi didn't come back in from the sun roof until we were practically in the city.

  
As the lights got closer Levi climbed into the back into my car and worked his way to the back seat. He crawled over to one of the windows. I had the type of windows that needed to be cranked to open and close. Levi began cranking on the handle, and opening the window. He did the same with the other window and the window by his seat. I did the same with mine. We didn't close the sunroof. The music still wasn't drowned out by all the noise which was actually pretty incredible.  
Levi's hair whipped around his face and he stuck his hand out of the window. His cheeks were rosy and wind chapped, as were his lips. He closed his eyes and moved his hand along with the current of the wind. In that moment I wished I could draw or paint or somehow capture the way he looked so beautifully imperfect, sitting in the passenger seat of the car I had worked so hard to buy. I had never wanted to stop a moment in a good way before but right now, I wanted nothing more than to be stuck here forever.

  
We eventually got to the campus and found the party house. Levi and I were both still in nice clothes, but we didn't really stick out.

  
Inside the house was fucking insane, it was packed, loud, and smelled like BO and booze. Levi led me through the crowd, and to one of the more empty parts of the house. There was a group of older kids standing around in the corner. They looked kind of intimidating. They were pretty much dressed in all black, and most of them were gigantic, even compared to me.  
Levi led me straight up to them. They didn't notice us at first, but one of them caught sight of Levi and dragged him into their circle.

  
"Leeeevvvviiiiiii," the person shouted, “You’re not dead I’m so happy,” they slurred their words when they spoke.

  
"Let go of me shitty glasses you're drunk as fuck," he shouted back. They both continued to struggle for a while until someone else spoke.

  
"And who is this?" a short red head asked.

  
"Eren," he replied, still trying to push his "attacker" away from him, "Eren," he said, suddenly seemingly accepting that the person glomming onto him wasn't going to stop, "this is Petra (the red head), Oluo (who looked like a less cool rip off of Levi), Nabana (a tall blonde woman), Mike (another tall blonde guy), Erwin (the tallest of all the blonde dudes), and Hanji (shitty glasses)," he finished pointing at the girl that had wrapped herself around his waist. If Levi had a type it would have to be tall blondes because goddamn, he surrounded himself with them.

  
"Hey," I said giving a small wave.

  
"Hi," they all replied by in sync. If they hadn't been completely buzzed and friendly, it would have been creepy.

  
"Okay," Levi said, not even bothering with Hanji anymore, "what's the plan."

  
Oluo was the first to respond, "Go in, get as much food and booze as we can, and get out," he slurred his words, it was obvious that he had already had a lot to drink. They all had, "and, kid," he said looking at me, "if anyone gives you shit, kick 'em in the ass," he laughed and draped his arm around Petra.

  
"Alright," someone said, "let's go."

  
We all split up, accept Levi and I. I was thankful that Hanji had detached herself from Levi. To be honest it was starting to make me jealous.

  
"Are we really going to help them steal food?" I asked. I was no square, but I didn't like the idea of stealing, it wasn't something that I had done in a while, and I didn't want to get back into that habit.

  
"No," he said, "trust me, they'll get enough of that on their own."

  
He looked up at me with those perfect eyes, and I couldn't help myself.

  
"Well then," I said, "can we go dance?"

  
Levi shrugged, and tried to hide the fact that he was definitely blushing, “Okay,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard.   
I grabbed Levi's hand, and led him to the center of what I assumed was the dance floor, which was less of a direct leading, and more of an awkward adventure looking for where it would be most comfortable to dance. I had been to lots of parties before, but never a college party. It was somewhat the same, but with more beer and no one cared about the house, so drinks getting spilled and stuff like that didn't seem to matter. The dance floor was crowded, so Levi and I ended up getting pushed really close together. It took a song for us to both loosen up, but after awhile dancing became natural. We moved to the music and we danced with each other, in a way. Our motions were eventually coordinated with each other to compensate for the small space. I considered it dancing with each other.

  
He was so close to me, it was so tempting.

  
He hadn't objected when I had grabbed his hand, did I dare push my luck?

  
Yes, yes I did.

  
I reached out, and grabbed his hips. He didn't stop moving, as he looked me straight in the eye and stepped even closer. Our bodies were touching, it took my breath away, but I could tell that whatever this had done for me, the effect was the same for Levi. Even in the heat room, I could tell we both seemed warmer than usual. I wondered if he was experienced with anything like this at all. He always seemed so calm when he was around me, but with this just slight bit of provocation he had completely melted into my arms.

  
Levi, though he seemed a bit unsure of what to do, lifted his arms up and rested his elbows on my shoulders so he could lace his fingers in my hair. We continued to dance like that for a while. We only broke eye contact for a few seconds at a time.  
I was about to push my luck even farther and put my hands on his ass when I heard Oluo hiss from somewhere behind us, "What the fuck are you two doing? We have to go."

  
We immediately split apart and stood for a couple seconds, all of us were just looking awkwardly at each other. Finally Levi and I followed Oluo out of the house. Once we were outside we saw the rest of the group gathered on the far side of the yard. They were standing in front of a small pile of food and beer, in a horrible attempt to hide it from everyone else at the party.

  
"Where the hell were you guys?" Mike asked.

  
"Nowhere," Levi replied, deadpan.

  
"I'll tell you later," Oluo whispered not so quietly as he walked by.

  
"Do you have a ride?" Petra asked.

  
"Yeah," I replied, "we brought my car."

  
"Sweet," Petra said as she, and the rest of the group started to pick up the loot, "where is it?"

  
I led them all to my car and they all ended up piling in and putting their stolen things in my trunk. There were way too many people in the car so the seating arrangements were odd. I was driving seeing as I was the only one who was willing, and sober, Erwin got the front seat, and we had somehow managed to get six people crammed into the back seat, then Levi and Petra (they were the two smallest) sat on either side of the backseat with their legs stretching out towards the other end.  
"Well then Eren," Hanji said once everyone was situated, "take us to the top of one of the hills."

  
"Okay," I said uncertainty, "which one?"

  
"Any one," Hanji shouted before bursting into a fit of maniacal laughter. I looked at Levi for some reassurance, but he only shrugged at me.

  
I started to drive and Hanji said that she was going to be the DJ, which involved her practically forcing herself into the front seat, only restrained by Levi and Petra's legs, and several shouts from Levi that if she didn't calm down he wouldn't let her eat any pizza, which as lame of a threat as it was, got her to at least stop throwing herself at the windshield of my car.

  
I looked at Levi in the rear view mirror, he was looking back, sympathetically, Oluo intercepted my glance with a stone cold glare, so I returned my eyes to the road. I was glad that he had friends other than me, but I hadn’t expected them to be so cold towards me.

  
We ended up on top of one of the tallest, and most unused and uninhabited hills. Levi and I were the first to get out of the car, and the others made up some shitty excuse to stay. It was something like we're deciding on a radio station of something, so Levi and I unpacked the trunk.

  
They waited until we were finished getting the stuff out of the trunk before beginning to talk. They were really drunk and loud, and my car doors did almost nothing to block out the sound of their talking.

  
Oluo started the story off, "So you guys sent me off to find those two, so I checked all of the spare rooms, but I couldn't find them, right? So I thought, 'well maybe they went to the dance floor' so I went there and I saw some hair that looked like his," he jerked his thumb in my direction, "And so I started to walk over to it and then I see that that kid has his hands on Levi's ass and that's when they saw me and split apart. But guys, I so told you he was gay."

  
Levi curled his legs up to his chest and buried his face in his hands.

  
Petra was the next to talk, "Oluo, you shouldn't assume things for all we know they could have a perfectly good reason for that. And anyway, if he was he would have told us, right? We've known him a long time!" It seemed like she could handle her liquor the best out of all of them.

  
The car then erupted into argument. Levi looked uncomfortable sitting there.

  
"Hey," I said scooting closer to him, "are you okay?"

  
He lifted his head up and rested it on his crossed arms, "Yeah, I'm fine."

 

After some more arguing, everyone exited the car. They were all really quiet, it was awkward. They all walked over and sat around the food and faced the upper half of the city. The lights were pretty. They danced across the horizon, and disappeared into the night. If I hadn't been so nervous I would have enjoyed it more. 

  
Finally, Oluo broke the silence again, "Levi, can you pass me a beer?"

  
Levi obliged. Oluo was just starting to take a sip when Levi spoke harshly, "And he didn't have his hands on my ass. Eren actually has some class," he glared hard at Oluo.

  
He spit out whatever he had just put in his mouth and looked mortified.

  
Everyone erupted into laughter, even Mike and Erwin, who were very rowdy, but still hadn't said much of anything. The rest of the night seemed normal, I didn't know Levi's friend group well yet, but it seemed like this was the way they always acted. Everyone was talking, and laughing.

  
"And then I dared Mike to shove a third straw up his nose," Hanji had to stop and intake massive amounts of air, "a-and then they got stuck," she stopped again to laugh. Everyone was on the ground dying of laughter, accept Levi, who was just chuckling and shaking his head, "and we ended up having to go to the hospital, and he still has a scar right there on his nose."

  
I swear I was dying. I had felt a cold aura before, but that had faded into something much more welcoming.   
Erwin started the next story, "Remember that one time when...."

  
________________________

  
Eventually everyone got drunk and were laying all over, accept Levi, me, Petra, and Oluo. Levi had told me that the were a couple, but it was still really fucking gross that they were making out so close to us.

 

"Get a room you two," Levi said reaching out and pushing Leo's head away from Petra, which unfortunately didn't direr them at all.

  
"Jesus," Levi mumbled standing up and offering his hand to me, "wanna take a walk."

  
"Sure," I replied, taking his hand and standing up.

  
We walked away until their voices had faded out into the rest of the night. We were surrounded by darkness, but the lights from both parts of the city on either side of us were so beautiful. It looked like a metropolitan sky. Man really does imitate nature.

  
"He's an asshole," Levi said as he sat down, "he'll probably say something dick-ish to you at some point, but just ignore it, he's all bark and no bite."

  
"Yeah I noticed," I said with a chuckle, "it did look like he was about to bite through his own tounge when you told him off though."

 

Levi laughed stiffly. He paused for a long time. He brought his brows together as if her were thinking hard on something, all I could do was watch his expression,if he was going to open up to me, I wasn’t going to interrupt his thoughts. I wasn’t going to deter him from telling me anything.  "I'm not gay," he said eventually.

  
My stomach dropped. He was by far the only person that I had met so far that actually liked, I didn’t want that to be over before it even began.  "What?" I managed asked.

  
"Or at least I choose not to call myself that," he started his tone changed, it was soft and intimate, "I decided a while ago that I wouldn't define myself with words when it comes to love. I decided that I would fall in love with whoever I love, I don't really care what gender they are, because that doesn't define what love is. When we tell ourselves that we are only interested In men or women or anything else, we limit the way we display affection, and I don't want to be limited, you know?"

  
It took me a while to process what he had said, "Yeah, that's a nice way to live," I said.

  
"It is," he said, in that same sensually soft tone, "it's nice to be free."

  
I didn't say anything for a while, we not just sat and watched the city lights.

  
"What are we," I asked.

  
"What do you mean?" He replied looking at me. Damn those eyes.

  
"You and me, what are we?" I asked turning to face him and sighed, "I mean at this point I don't even care if you say we're just friends, it's just that I've been so consumed with you, and I want to know if I have a chance or not."

  
He sighed, "I don't know I-," he stopped himself short, "I think that you are nice and-," he cut himself off again, "and fuck I'm bad at this."

  
He stopped talking and looked at me.

  
I giggled a bit it had been so long since I had actually giggled, "No don't stop," leaned in closer, "I like where this is going."  
He didn't do anything for a few seconds. Then he rolled over to his hands and knees and crawled slightly over to where I was sitting. He straddled me and threw his arms around my neck. He pressed his forehead against mine and stared straight into my eyes.

  
"You are the most fucking beautiful person I have ever met, inside and out, and I just want to paint you all day, and read stories with you, and I want to be around you all the time, and I like how your stupid hair is so perfect, and how beautiful your eyes are, and I just fucking like everything about you. And I don't know what to do about it."

  
I couldn’t say anything at first, I had never been called beautiful before.

  
His lips were so close to mine it would be so easy to just lean forward. I was just about to, when Hanji popped over the side of the hill, "Hey Levi, when are we gonna- oh, sorry! I'll give you two some privacy," she turned and left.

  
Levi had turned just slightly to face her, but he now returned his attention to me, "What about you," he asked so quietly, "what are your feelings?"

  
I had always been told that actions speak louder than words.

  
I leaned forward and kissed him. It was quick, but his lips lingered, just barely touching mine. Something about it seemed more intimate than any other kisses I had ever experienced. I leaned forward again and once again I was surrounded by a wonderful sensation. It was warm, and Levi's lips were soft and delicate. This time I deepened our kiss. Eventually I repositioned Levi, so he was laying on his back, his arms were still around my neck, but mine had shifted. One was on the small of his back, while the moved gingerly up and down his side. Levi yielded to me, and if that didn’t make me cocky as all hell I didn’t know what would.

  
"Well then," I heard a familiar voice call out, "who needs to get a room now?"

  
We had broken apart. I was sitting with my feet curled under me and Levi propped himself up on the ground, "At least we had the decency to move away from people," Levi said again. His voice had changed it was no longer the sweet sensual tone I had heard before. It was rough and cold as ice.

  
We both stood up after that and walked passed Oluo I heard Levi whisper, "Asshole," as we passed. We eventually packed everything back up and piled in the car again. I drove all of his friends home. Petra and Oluo got off at the same house. I heard Levi angrily mutter something about how Oluo needed to leave Petra alone and how it was "sick" that they were sleeping together. Eventually, we were the only ones left in the car.


	6. Taking Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unnecessary drama? Yes, yes that is exactly what most of this chapter is. I wanted to have some sort of plot action within the first few chapters so why not shove it in here? This chapter ended up much longer than I thought it would be but I want to make this story as coherent as I can so the chapters end up being longer. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

Levi yawned and stretched, "What time is it?"

  
"About 5:30," I replied. Despite it being so early I still felt like I could run a marathon with him next to me.

  
"Hmm," he replied as he curled up in his seat and began to fall asleep again.

  
"It'll be a while before we get home," I replied.

  
"Okay," he replied, "wake me up when we get there."

  
He didn't say anything after that, he was passed out. I pulled into my apartment complex. I didn't have the energy to go anywhere else, so I lifted Levi out of the passengers seat and began to carry him to my place. He was light, even for his size.  
When I first picked him up, he started awake and looked panicked, I held him tighter, partly because I was afraid I would drop him. He looked at my face, and after a few seconds he calmed down and fell back into dreams I pictured were filled with creatures that could rival even the monsters of the most adventurous novels. I walked him into my apartment and went to turn on the light. That woke him. He looked up at me and rubbed his eyes. He swayed on his feet as I set him down.

  
"You should just spend the night here," I said as I walked towards my bedroom.

  
"Mmm," Levi replied and began to follow me.

  
Once we were both inside, I walked over to my dresser and pulled out my pajamas. I didn't have any extra, so for Levi I pulled out a large sweater. I tossed it towards him, and he began to undress. Not that I minded, but I had thought he would have asked for a little privacy. I found myself happy that he was so tired and not thinking straight. I was used to being up all night, but it was obvious Levi was not. He began to strip down, and gave me the most pleasant view of the tan skin he kept hidden beneath the fabric of his jacket. 

  
He did have a nice frame, I could see his hipbones jutting out from his skin, and the way his figure flowed so gracefully from his head to his feet. Delicate was the only way to describe him. From the way he moved, spoke, and acted if Levi was anything it was delicate, not fragile, but just cautious, gentle. He had large gray scars that were sprinkled about his chest and back, some were dark, but others were barely visible. They were the kind of marks that you knew would have hurt like hell when they were inflicted but had now healed into scars that cut deeper than the blade that had formed them, they carried a sharp pain that pushed itself into bone and shattered it. It looked like he had gotten them in a fight, or many fights. I wanted to take all the marks into my hands and erase the demons that had inflicted them. 

  
My thoughts were interrupted when the hem of the sweater ran its way down his chest, interrupting my view. It looked adorable on him. It was big on me so it was gigantic on him. It was at least two hands too big on the sleeves, and the very edge of his boxers barley showed on the bottom. The collar was lopsided so almost his entire shoulder was revealed. Looking at him was like looking through a kaleidoscope, with every turn, I saw something new. He had so many edges and I wanted to explore all of them. I wanted to know all of them like I knew my own.

  
I was fairly certain that Levi wouldn't want to sleep with me after my not so subtle screw up the first time, but I was wrong. I laid down on one side of the bed, expecting him to pick the other, but instead he crawled from the foot of the bed to where I was sleeping, and wedged himself under my arms. It reminded me of a dog I used to have, she would always do the same thing. He positioned himself so his back was up against my chest, so he could curl up into a ball. I put one arm under his head and placed the other on his thigh. After a couple seconds of silence, we were both asleep.

  
The next morning we awoke in the same position, accept Levi had stretched out his legs. His feet only reached to about my shins. He was small, compact, but had packed so much of a punch that my entire life had been knocked off track. After about another hour of us both being awake and not moving, I heard a buzzing coming from Levi's jacket. It sounded like someone was calling him.

  
"Are you going to get that?" I asked, as the buzzing picked up for the second time in a row. 

  
"No," Levi replied. I had never heard his voice just after waking up. It was light, as always, but it was a few octaves deeper than before. He sounded softer, like the tone he had used with me last night. God, his voice did something to me. It made me want to forget to hold back with him and give in to the desires that had been occupying most of my thoughts for a while now.

  
"Do you want me to get it?" I asked, wanting him to speak more.

  
"If you want," Levi replied, "I don't really care."

  
I was now intrigued, most people wouldn't give someone else permission to touch their phone, but Levi had said he didn't care. I took advantage of the situation. I got up and padded quietly over to his jacket. I held it up and found the pocket that had his phone, it also had the check from the art show. I didn't really want to dig around in his pockets so I quickly found his phone and began to check it.

  
He had an old phone, so it was easy to unlock it and look at who had been calling him, "It was Hanji," I said. Her contact name was Shitty Glasses, but I knew who he was talking about.

  
"Whoa," I said as I looked further into his phone, "you've got like 12 voicemails."

  
"Mm," Levi grunted in return.

  
"Should I play them?" I asked.

  
"Sure," he replied. He hadn't moved since waking up.

  
I played the first one on speakerphone.

_  
Hey Levi its Petra, I'm really sorry that I can't come and see you this week but I have a really big project I need to work on. I know how you get, Levi, please don't just shut yourself away. It's not healthy, call me please_.

  
The next one played automatically. Levi still hadn't moved or reacted in any way to the concern of his friend. 

__  
Hey Levi it's us, we were just wondering how you were doing.  
We're going out to dinner today, you should join us!  
Shut up, I'm the one talking!  
Okay, okay Jesus...  
Anyway, call me please we are starting to get worried.

  
There were several more like that, mostly just filling him in on their everyday life. As the messages progressed though the voices sounded more and more concerned, the final one was the most emotional.

_  
Levi, we went to your apartment today, and you weren't there. Please, just please call me. We are all really worried. Please. Just come home, we all heard about what happened, and it's not your fault that this is happening. I know you're probably beating yourself up over it but know that it's not your fault. Nothing you could have done could have changed the way things ended up. I'm sorry that you have to deal with all this shit, but please just talk to us about it. Call me back._  

  
The massage ended, there were no more after that. Those had just been from two weeks ago. The week he hadn't come to class.

  
"Levi," I said, he still hadn't moved at all, "can I ask why you didn't come to class two weeks ago?"

  
"I just," he paused, “couldn’t be there,” he said, still not moving or reacting physically in any way.

  
I crawled back into bed and hugged him to my chest. He rolled over, so now his face was at my shoulder level.

  
"Why?" I asked using the most delicate tone I could manage, "did something come up?"

  
"Yeah," he said so quietly.

  
"Mm," I replied hugging him tighter, "I know you probably don't want to talk about it, but if you ever do, I'm here for you."

  
He didn't say anything for a while, "Do you believe in reincarnation?"

  
"I don't know," I relied, "why?" I had never put any thought into it before.

  
"I do," he said, "that's why I draw and paint people, I'm trying to catch someone, at least one last time."

  
"Who?" I asked.

  
"My sister," he replied, “and my mother.”

  
"Why?" I wasn't trying to be nosy, I just wanted him to open up to me. It was the first time he had ever really talked about his feelings before, and I was all too ready to worm my way into his personal life.

  
He took a breath and sat up, "It's complicated."

  
"We've got all day," I said gently. I cursed myself for pressuring him to talk to me, but I really wanted to know. Levi didn't say anything for a while, "I'm sorry," I eventually said, "you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

  
We didn't talk for a while, he couldn’t even look at me. We sat in a silence so thick I swear I could have pulled it off my skin.

  
"Do you really care?" he asked still not meeting my gaze.

  
"Yeah," I said as quietly as I could manage, "Levi I know I haven't known you for very long, but I feel like I've known you forever. I want you to be able to trust me because I can say that right now, I trust you more than I have anyone in a long time."

  
"I do trust you," he said, he took a deep breath as he began his story, “I,” he paused again, “My dad wasn’t nice to my mom, or my sister, or me. I bet you can imagine what I mean, and my sister ran away when she was sixteen, or maybe she was seventeen, I don’t remember; but I haven’t seen her since then. I don’t know where she is, she could be dead for all I know. We were close, she and my mom were the only two that made it feel like I had a normal home life, and I'm so grateful for them both. I have no idea where I would be without them," it almost felt like his words had gotten caught in his throat, “My mom had always been a bit unstable, and so when my sister left, it completely ruined her. She hasn’t been the same since, and I don’t think she ever will. She started having these,” he paused searching for the right words, “episodes after my sister left, my dad left her too, not long after my sister, and the episodes got worse. Eventually it got so bad that I had to take her to the hospital. I don't even know what was happening, I was just so terrified, and taking her to the doctor was the only thing I could think to do.

  
“She was diagnosed with dementia and eventually I had to put her in a care center," his eyes were distant. He wasn't looking at me, he was looking past me, "That," he stopped again, "that was the hardest day of my life. I don't know if you've ever had to take someone away from their home, but she didn't just go easily. She kicked and screamed at me the whole time, saying that she was fine, and that I was betraying her, and that I could have done more to keep everything together. But I didn't know what to do, I had no idea what was going on, and the doctors said that being under constant supervision would be good for her, and I believed them. The week that I missed, I went home to visit her, I go back every few months, but this time I went because I got a call,” he paused again and I could see there were tears in his eyes, “They had said her condition was worsening, and she was having trouble remembering even the people closest to her so they wanted me to try and come back to see if I could spur a memory," he swallowed, "She didn’t remember me at all. And, I know there are a lot of things that could have been worse, but it still hurts more than anything.” He finally looked back at me and smiled at me through his tears. He was smiling and crying and all I could think to do was hold him close to me. I realized that laughter and tears were so similar in that moment. I wrapped my arms around him, and he cried before saying, “It’s just that I don’t really have any family left anymore.”

  
I couldn’t think of anything to comfort him. I knew how he felt, I’d felt that way too, I’d felt that way for a long time, “I’ll be your family,” I said, “and I know all your other friends will be too. If your family didn’t think you were worth it, they you should waste any tears over them because they aren’t worth it either. I think family is the people that love you, and if that isn’t the people that raised you, then they don’t deserve your love. If your family causes you that much pain, they choudln't be your family.”

  
“Yeah,” he said leaning his head on my shoulder, “that’s really beautiful.”

  
“I’m still sorry though, I know how painful that is,” I said.

  
"Don't be sorry for things that you can't change," Levi said in the same sensually soft voice.

  
After a while of a comforting silence, he asked, "What about you? What's your story?"

  
"There's not much to me really," I said moving my head, so the crown of Levi's head was under my chin, "my mom died when I was really young, it was a freak accident really. She was a contractor and one of the houses she was working on collapsed while she was inspecting it. We never learned what actually caused it, but the official report said that the building had been built on structually unstable ground, that had shifted. I've never believed it, she would never have made a mistake like that," I had to stop. It brought back so many memories. I remembered her hanging laundry out to dry, and the way she always had told me that I would grow up to be something great someday, "My dad really beat himself up about it for a really long time. He had always thought that it was his fault, that somehow he had caused it, and he took his feelings out on me or the bottle a lot of the time. I didn't know how to cope either, so I followed the example he gave me. We moved around from city to city and I somehow got mixed up with things I shouldn't have, and ended up addicted to some pretty hard stuff," I paused, "I felt so out of control, and I felt like I had to keep going down the way I was going, and it took me watching one of the people I though was my best friends die to realize that I didn't want it to end this way."

"I had dropped out of school and my dad didn't notice, he had started working away his grief, and I lied around all the questions he asked he left me behind, and for the longest time I thought he didn't care about me," I was already getting choked up, "I finally opened up to him about everything, and he cried. I think that's my biggest regret in life, keeping everything to myself because he really did mean well, but he helped me get clean and get my G.E.D. and get my life back on track," I couldn't help but crying. I had been so grateful at the time and I was even more grateful now. I was lucky, I had somewhere to call home. No matter how much I fucked up, I knew I would never be on my own. Talking about my dad reminded me, I hadn't called him in a while I would have to do that. 

  
"Mm," Levi said, "congratulations, then, you made it."

  
"Thanks," I said.

  
I could see my alarm clock from where I was laying. We had woken late to begin with , and after the time we spent talking, it was almost four.

  
"Are you hungry?" I asked.

  
“Always," he replied and buried his face further into my shirt.

  
I grabbed his legs and pulled him towards my chest, lifting him into my arms.

  
"Hey!" He said, briefly squirming in my arms. He eventually settled into my hold and rested his head against my chest. My heartbeat sped up, of course it would at this moment. He looked so vulnerable, it would be so easily to try and push my luck, just to see how he would react.

  
"Are you nervous," Levi asked ear still pressed to my chest.

  
My pulse sped up even more, "No," I started, "you're just too damn cute," I mumbled the last part of my response, I had once heard that excuses were like buttholes, we all have them and they all stink, but it was the best I could come up with in the spur of the moment.

  
A bright pink color spread across his face, which he promptly covered, as he turned his head away from me, “I’m not cute, I’m manly as hell,” he replied turning to face me with a stone cold look that reminded me almost too much of my father.

  
I walked out to my living room, which had a small kitchen and island in the corner. I set Levi down at one of the bar stools that surrounded the island. He rubbed his eyes with the too long sleeve of my shirt. As much as I knew he would have hated for me to take note, you could tell that he had been crying.

  
His face looked so soft. He looked so touchable sitting there in front of me, he looked so relaxed, most of the time he looked almost like he was trying to feel and grasp onto too many things at once; but now it looked as though he had been reborn. Levi was beautiful, was the first revelation I had that day. I had know that from the moment I had laid eyes on him, but his physical appearance was only supplemented by the fact that said beauty shone from the inside out. He looked so complacent, so satisfied, he looked so sexy. Perhaps that was my second revelation, occurring within seconds of the first. A giant knot formed in my stomach and I felt my heart return to the quickened pace that it seemed so fond of in Levi’s presence. I had to turn away. I had never thought of anyone as really sexy before, and, oh god, was it a powerful feeling. In that moment I was almost ashamed of the things I wanted to do to that boy. My thoughts spiraled between inappropriate and downright filthy for several seconds. My brain seemed to take no issue of conjuring up images of him splayed out against my bedspread in some of the most delicious ways.

_  
Holy shit_ , I thought, _cool it thoughts, fucking hell, calm down_. I had suddenly lost the ability to keep my eyes off him as my mind spiraled further out of control.

  
"Eren," Levi asked, oh my god, he sounded so innocent. That only served to make the heat that was pooling in my lower body more unbearable, "are you okay?"

  
I turned away curtly and started preparing some coffee, "Yeah, I'm fine," I replied.

  
"Okay," he said standing up, and walking over to me, "what are you going to make?"

  
He was standing right next to me, I turned away before answering, "Coffee."

  
"I figured that," he said. I could practically hear his eyes rolling as he turned away and started to walk around my apartment, “I meant what are you going to make for breakfast. I mean as much as I love coffee, I’m really fucking hungry,” I think he noticed what was going on with me, but was too polite to draw attention to it. He walked over to the only undecorated wall in my apartment, "What are you going to put here?" he asked after viewing it in silence for several seconds. 

  
"I don't know yet," I replied, "I was thinking of painting it, but I don't know what color."

  
"What about coral, or blue?" He said gesturing at the wall. I had actually put no effort into thinking about what to put on the walls of this shit-hole, but I was willing to pretend to stave off the silence that we too often found ourselves wrapped in.

  
"Yeah, that would look good."

  
"Eren?" It sounded like more of a statement than a question.

  
"Yeah," I replied popping a few pieces of bread into toaster.

  
"Thank you, for everything," he locked eyes with me from across the room, "I know I'm not good with words, but, just, thank you for being so open and willing to listen."

"You're welcome," I replied, "I've found that listening is something I'm pretty good at," I laughed a little and Levi snorted in amusement. 

I returned to my business in the kitchen, and finished making breakfast. I turned to find Levi sitting in the seat I had put him in earlier. I swear I jumped at least three feet in the air.

  
"What?" He asked sitting straight up and looking only slightly concerned, but mostly amused.

  
"Nothing," I said laughing a bit, "it's just you're really quiet."

  
He smiled a bit at my remark and turned his attention to his coffee cup.

  
"So," I said, trying to not sound as awkward as I felt, "do you wanna go somewhere tonight?"

  
His face lit up and he looked right at me, "Yeah, I would really like that."

  
"Alright," I replied. I was nervous. I had no good reason to be so shaken, but I was, "so where do you want to go?"

  
"You know the pier, right?" He asked looking at me with his perfect silver eyes.

  
Our city had a small lake not too far from it. A lot of people had wanted to use it as a water source for the city, the town board didn't, so they did possibly the most passive aggressive thing known to man. They built a pier and declared that is was a recreational area. It was the whole gamut as well, rides, food vendors, it was pretty much an eleven year old's dream.

  
"Yeah," I replied it was where a lot of the kids went to hang out, or at least that's what the towns information center had said about the place, "you really wanna go there?"

  
"Yeah," he replied, he had a distant look in his eyes, "I haven't been there in ages. It would be nice to just visit for a while."

  
"Okay then," I said sitting down to eat breakfast, "we'll go to the pier."

  
The pier had an actual name, it was just that no one knew what it was, so it was dubbed "the pier" by pretty much everyone.  
After we finished our mid-afternoon breakfast, I went to get changed. Levi followed me to my bedroom, again, and began to look for his clothes.

  
I waited for him to gather up all his things, and expected him to leave; however, he seemed to be full of surprises. As he began to undress in front of me for the second time, however this time I did not have the fallback of sleep deprivation as an excuse, “Hey,” I started, “don’t you want some privacy or something?” It wasn't like I was unhappy with the current situation, but I was having difficulty controlling my thoughts as it was. I did not need him undressing in front of me to add to the already unbearable sexual frustration that had consumed me.

  
He looked at me so innocently and I could feel my heart melt, “No, we’re friends aren’t we,” he responded, “I don’t see any reason that either of us should feel uncomfortable.”

  
“Did you just friendzone me?” I replied looking at him in earnest, “After I just asked you out on a date?”

  
“So this is a date then?” he replied smirking at the way I had reacted.

  
“That depends,” I replied, “are you going to keep answering my questions with questions?”

“Are you?” he bit his lip to keep from smiling, a tease that I would have taken, but I was actively trying not to be an asshole. The things I wanted to say to him, but I knew that if I did anything like that now, I would regret it, so I chose to turn away and continue dressing.

  
After we had dressed, Levi insisted on helping with the dishes, but after he declared that my kitchen was as clean as it was going to get, we got in the car and started driving to Levi’s apartment.

  
Once I got there he tried to convince me that it would only take him a second to get changed, but I wanted to come inside, so I followed him anyway. Levi was quick, he grabbed some clothes from his bedroom and got changed in a heartbeat. During the short time that he was changing I got a chance to look at all of the paintings that were strewn about his apartment. They were all exceptional, but there was one piece that caught my attention.

  
It was of a girl she had about jaw length black hair, like Levi's, and she was beautiful, I could only assume that this was his sister, I peered down at the small print on the corner of the canvas: _Mikasa, Age 20._

  
Levi walked up behind me in clean clothes, he didn't look at the picture for very long. Eyes just ghosting over the image of the girl that had transfixed me.

  
“Is this?” I trailed off not really wanting to drag up old memories if Levi wasn’t willing to share, “sorry.”

  
“No it’s fine,” he replied shaking his head at me, “yeah, that’s my sister, at least what I think she would look like.”

  
I shook my head, "Sorry. Ready to go?"

  
"Yes," Levi replied confidently, readily ending the conversation.

  
I hopped into my car, and Levi got the passenger's seat. I had been smart and brought a jacket, and this time Levi had done the same. I had hoped that he wouldn’t, I would have loved to see him in my jacket. Seeing him in any of my clothing was a treat.

  
The drive was uneventful. Levi stood out of the sun roof again, we didn't have music going this time, so he just stood. The wind whipped around him and down into the car, throwing my hair about and carrying the smell of the sand and water to me. We must have been getting close. I could feel his presence, even if I hadn't been able to see Levi I would have been able to feel him in the car next to me. He took up space unapologetically and ruled it as though it were a part of him. 

  
We got to the pier at about five in the afternoon. The sun was beginning to set, and the water of the lake was lit up with the Sun's dying rays. The light danced across the waves as they pushed back and forth against the thick wooden poles that held up the rest of the pier.

  
Levi and I walked along the beach for a while, watching the sun and the water, it was hard to keep my eyes on the beautiful scene before me though, the god walking in front of me commanded almost all of my attention.

  
"I used to come here all the time," he said looking out across the water, “when I first moved here.”

  
"With your other friends?" I asked.

  
"Or alone," he shrugged, “I always needed an excuse to get out and about.”

  
"How long have you all been friends?" I wanted to know everything about him.

  
"Not very long, well accept for Erwin he and I have been friends since elementary school," he said, “But I met everyone else when I first moved here, I started taking camp tours everywhere I could, and I ended up in the same group as all of them.”

  
“Really? That’s all it took?” I replied, “Damn if I’d have know making friends was that easy I would have started doing it a long time ago,” I laughed.

  
“Well, no, that wasn’t everything that happened, but we may or may not have separated from the group and stolen the school’s mascot costume, after that we all kind of had to be friends.”

  
"Nice," I replied, laughing even harder now.

  
Neither of us spoke for a while. It gave me time to observe him. He was absorbed in the sunset, so he didn’t realize I had become his silent patron. I tried to memorize the way his jawline cut against the outline of his face, and the way his nose gently dipped from his forehead, like a wave reaching its crest.

  
"What's your favorite color?" Levi asked so suddenly it broke me out of my trance like state.

  
"Why do you care?" I asked laughing a little at the seemingly random question.

  
"Because I want to know more about you," he responded looking up at me through his eyelashes, "also because I’m actually five and will judge you on what your favorite color is," he turned his gaze back out over the water.

  
"Damn there are stakes with this question? I wasn’t prepared," I laughed, he returned my laugh with a smile. I had never really given a thought to which color was my favorite, "red," was the answer I eventually gave up, but I knew that as long as I had him near me any color that decorated him would be my favorite.

  
"Mm," he nodded, “good answer,” he had never once taken his eyes off the lake, the sun was almost all the way behind the horizon now, it was cold enough to see your breath come out in small puffs.

  
"What about you?" I asked.

  
"I like that color," he said pointing at the sunset, "the one that makes the purple fade to black."

  
I looked up at the pier it was brightly lit and loud, "You wanna go up there?" I asked pointing to it with my thumb.

  
"Uh," he replied looking at me confidence suddenly gone without a trace, "can we just stay down here for a while? There are a lot of people up there..." he trailed off.

  
“Just try it for a few minutes, and if you really don't like it we can leave."

  
Levi sighed, "Fine," he said and started walking in my direction and towards the pier.

  
We walked close together, and I was so tempted to hold Levi's hand, I restrained myself for a while, but eventually the urge to be close to him won, and I snatched his hand with my own. He looked down at our hands and smiled before bringing them both into his jacket pocket. The sun had gone down now, and it was quite cold.

  
"Where do you want to go?" I asked as we reached the entrance of the boardwalk.

  
"Anywhere, I haven't ever really been up here," he replied.

  
"Okay, how about we just walk around for a bit and take in the scenery?"

  
"Sure," Levi replied.

  
We strolled leisurely up towards the end of the pier and watched everything. There were kids all around us, they were shouting and playing, it seemed like forever ago that I was that carefree, what I wouldn’t give to get that back.

  
We finally reached the end of the structure.

  
"See?" I started, "It isn't so bad up here."

  
"I'm surrounded by kids," Levi said looking at me with the most disgusted look he could muster.

  
"You don't like kids?"

  
"No. They're all shitty brats."

  
"Not all kids are bad."

  
"But most of them are."

  
I laughed, "That's true."

  
We didn't end up going on any of the rides, we just stood at the end of the boardwalk, and looked out over the lake.

  
Levi was tired so we went home early.

  
On the drive back to the city Levi fell asleep in my car again. Was it bad that I stared so much at him? He was more of a distraction to my driving asleep than he was awake.

  
He woke up about 5 minutes from his apartment complex, and I instantly wished he hadn't. I had wanted him to spend another night with me, or at least have had the opportunity to make the same excuse I had last night. I pulled into the small parking lot that was outside of the dairelect building.

  
Levi yawned and stretched his arms above his head, revealing a small bit of his midsection that definitely did not go unnoticed by me. He looked over at me and caught my gaze as my eyes trailed back up to his face. He smiled at me, “I should go.” He pulled open the door and stepped out.

  
"Goodnight," I replied.

  
"Goodnight," he said back before closing the car door. I watched as he walked up his stairs and unlocked his front door.  
I waited until he had closed his door again before driving away. I had class tomorrow. God fucking dammit I had class. I was going here because I wanted to, I was paying to go here and I still hated it. It didn't help that I hadn't finished writing my paper yet. I arrived shortly after dropping him off, I locked my car before heading up the stairs to my apartment. I locked the door behind me, and flopped down on my couch as pulled my laptop over to me.

  
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck," I said to myself, "I don't wanna do this." Complaining seemed to be my specialty now a days. I opened my story document, and found a little paragraph typed in a different font. Levi was a sneaky mother fucker. I read the small little paragraph and immediately added it to the story and continued writing, suddenly struck with inspiration. By the time I finished, there were only a few hours left until I would have to wake up again. Dammit. What was my sleeping schedule?  
I put my laptop on the coffee table and fell asleep on my couch.

  
I was so rudely awoken the next morning, but not by my alarm clock, which I had indeed failed to set.

  
I had a text message from Levi:  
 _Wake up dumbass, you have to go to class. Btw good morning_.

  
I replied:

_Wow, real nice_.

  
_I know, I am the Romeo of Romeos._

_  
Clearly._

_  
I can even tell without you even being here that you want me to try again._

_  
Go ahead._

_  
Good morning my lovely, wake up and feel the fucking beautiful breeze on your fantastic fucking face._

_  
Wow, getting real sappy there._

_  
But of course._

_  
Do it properly._

_  
Fine_.

  
I waited a few more seconds before his next massage arrived.

  
_Good morning. I can't wait to see you today_.

  
It was exciting to get goodmorning texts from him, even his first draft, made my stomach erupt in butterflies. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I had never felt this way over anyone before. It was new and strange, but not entirely unwanted.

  
_Better?_

  
I realized that I hadn’t replied to him trying to be nice to me.

_  
Much better. Thank you._

_  
Alright see you later._

_  
See you later_.

  
I typed out a message, but I didn't send it. I wanted to talk about all of my feelings, but I ran into issues about halfway through. It felt weird to type out my feelings, but it wasn’t that sort of good weird either. Why was that? Was it just because I had never had these feelings before? Or was I really just misinterpreting admiration for attraction? Could I even do that, I mean I had admired people before, but I guess not in this way? It was much more intimate this time. I pushed it out of my mind and tried to get ready for the day. I couldn’t drop the annoyance (butterflies) though, I had stirred myself up. What if this wasn’t what I thought it was and I was just playing a person that I really cared for? I had to force myself to stop thinking about anything.

  
That morning I tried to mess up my hair so it looked like I hadn't spent any time on it, and in total it took about 10 minutes.  
Class passed quickly, I turned in my story, which I felt like I had done well on, and walked out to meet Levi.

  
He was where we usually sat, but instead of sitting across from him, I sat next to him.

  
"Good afternoon," he said as I sat down.

  
"To you as well," I replied. Levi wasn't drawing today, his nose was buried in a book.

  
After a couple seconds, he put down the book and took a deep breath, "I really shouldn't read this in public."

  
I looked at him, he was flustered, and a light pink had dusted across his face. He was so cute when he was blushing.  
I picked up the book and looked at the page he was on. I didn't read any of it, but he was about halfway through the large book. I was about to look at the cover when Levi snatched it back and put it face down on the ground. I reached for it, and Levi tried his best to keep me from getting it, "No," he said as I tried again to pick it up.

  
I finally got the book off the ground and turned it over, "You’re reading _Metamorphosis_?" I asked somewhat surprised, of course I recognized the book, but Levi had never seemed the type to read erotica, especially in public.

  
"No," he said trying to come up with an excuse, "I just- and the-."

  
I laughed as he wrestled with me and tried to recover the book.

  
"Do you like it?" I asked.

  
"Well, yeah I guess," he said turning an even darker shade of red, “how could I not, when the main character reminds me so much of you?”

  
"I'll have to reread it then," I said handing him back the book. It was his own copy, and it was kind of beat up. This was obviously not the first time he had read it. I played tennis in my mind with the thought of saying what came to mind, and eventually I decided it would be better to not be out with it now.

  
"You should come over to my place after you're done here," I said in an attempt to break the silence that had once again wrapped its way around us.

  
"Sure," Levi replied as the bell chimed, "see you later!"

  
"See ya!" I called after him.

  
Seriously though, he was reading _Metamorphosis_. I didn't know wether to be concerned or excited. I walked home and waited for Levi. I had to start another story for class, so I opened my laptop and decided to get a head start. At about four-thirty I heard a knock on the door, "It's unlocked!" I called not moving to help the person on the other side of the door.

  
"Do you want me to lock it now?" Levi asked, walking into my apartment.

  
"Sure," I replied still engrossed in my story. If my attention hadn’t been so focused I would have seen the look he gave me when he asked if I wanted the door locked.

  
He locked the door and threw what sounded like a bookbag on the floor, it skittered across the linoleum and thumped against the kitchen island. That drew me out of my trance and I started calculating in my head. He must have stopped at home and picked something up because he had definitely not had a book bag last time I saw him, which means he would have had to book it here to make is so quickly. What was in the bag that was that important to him?

  
He walked over to where I was working. He was holding that book.

  
"Is there room for me there?" He asked so innocently. Just his voice, the way he looked at me, it all made me weak in the knees.

  
"Yeah," I said lifting my computer up.

  
As always Levi was full of surprise when it came to personal space.

  
The way I was sitting was normal, to me at least. I had reclined myself on the armrest of the couch and had curled my knees up, so they could hold my laptop, I had a bit of a gap between my legs. That was were Levi chose to sit. He crawled between my legs, and rested his back on my chest. His head was right over my heartbeat, and he was small enough that his sitting there wouldn't be an interfere with my typing. It was actually really comfortable, the way we were sitting.

  
I replaced my laptop on my knees and Levi opened his book. We continued working in silence. Almost immediately after opening his book, Levi’s body temperature rose. As the chapter went on, he started to get warmer and warmer. It wasn't uncomfortable for me at all, in fact it was kind of erotic. He was making it hard to work. The best muses can be the worst distractions.

  
My mind started to stray from my writing, and was stuck on Levi. He was sitting between my legs, and he was getting aroused himself how was I supposed to stay focused? I tried to think of every unsexy thing I had ever witnessed. I thought about rocks and dirt, bugs, anything but the person that had nestled himself between my legs. At one point he actually shuddered at what he was reading. I swear it was taking every ounce of self control that I had not to pin him beneath me. I was afraid that my lower extremities would jump beyond the point of no return soon, I needed to get out of here.

  
"Um, Levi," I was eventually able to blurt out, "I need to use the restroom," I didn’t sound at all like it usually did, it was rough and deeper, I could hear the strain in my own voice.

  
"Okay," he replied as he maneuvered his way out from between my legs.

  
I rushed to the bathroom. _Eren, get your shit together. Control yourself_. I thought to myself. I splashed some cold water on my face, and tried to calm myself down. It was starting to work, until I decide to walk out and face Levi in the state he was in, again. God, was I fourteen again, ready to hump anything with a heartbeat? everything about today sure made me feel that way. 

  
I walked out into my living room and looked over at the place he was resting. Levi was splayed out comfortably on the couch; he had leaned up against the armrest sideways, and his feet were curled ever so slightly towards himself. If the couch hadn’t been there I would have gotten a pleasant view of his midsection. He seemed to have moved on from the more graphic portions of his reading, but my mind was still stuck on the image of him from a few minutes ago. I immediately wondered if the things he was reading reflected what he wanted, or if it was just a way to pass time and enjoy a story. The erotica was really just a bonus in _Metamorphosis_ , anyway, the plot was actually riveting. I hoped that I would be able to find the answer to that question.

  
He saw me looking at him and he gently rolled his eyes at my ruffled appearance.

  
"Is it really that good?" I couldn't help but ask.

  
Levi bit his bottom lip in what might have been a tease, or what might have been to cover a smile, "Obviously."

  
“And why’s that?” I asked moving closer to where he sat on the couch.

  
“You said you’ve read it,” he replied looking up at me through his eyelashes, “do you not recognize good things when you see them.”

  
“No, I can. I mean I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

  
He scoffed at me as I walked around to stand in front of me, he gently pushed my hip as I reached where he was seated, “You’re a dumbass, have I ever told you that?”

  
“I think you have,” a beat, “actually I think you called me a dumbass this morning.”

  
His hand hadn’t retreated from where he had pushed me, his fingers gently pushed past the fabric of my shirt, his fingers felt cool against my skin, “I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said smiling up at me, “you’re my dumbass.”

  
I chuckled at him and leaned down until his face was only centimeters from mine, “So it’s like a pet name.”

  
“I guess so,” he said smiling, he wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me closer.

  
Levi was a passionate kisser, I wrapped my arms around his midsection and pulled him closer as I deepened the kiss. He didn’t fight me for control, and simply allowed me to push him down onto his back. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t more than ready to erase the lines that defined where he began and I ended, I eased my mouth off his and began to kiss his ear and down his neck. He laced one of his hands through my hair, he placed the other on the center of my chest, “Eren,” he whispered as I pushed my hands beneath his shirt. His voice was breathy and heavy with want.

  
It was at this moment that Levi’s phone went off, vibrating and chiming in his pocket between us. I sat back on my heels and Levi sat up slightly to pull his phone out of his pocket. He looked at me and I could tell he was caught between wanting to answer it and wanting to pretend it had never interrupted us, “Go for it,” I said nodding towards the phone.

  
He straightened out his shirt before answering with a very disgruntled sounding, “Hello?” I could already tell it was Hanji, by the high pitched squeal that came from the other end of the phone, causing him to flinch and pull the phone away from his face, she continued speaking, “Okay where-” he was cut off. He spat out a few more fragments, before looking at me and asking, “Do I have to right now? I’m kind of in the middle of something,” there were more shouts from the other end of the phone, “Fine, fine give me like a half hour,” he rubbed his free hand over his face and hung up, “I’m really sorry this is shitty,” he trailed off standing up before helping me to my feet, “Class ends at four for me tomorrow, you could come over to my place.”

  
“Sure,” I replied, “what is going on?”

  
Levi wrinkled his nose at my question, “You really don’t want to know, but I’ll just say that I will definitely get to see more of my friend than I have ever wanted to before.”

  
I laughed as he grabbed his jacket headed for the door, “See you,” I said as I followed him.

  
“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” he said turning to place a not so chaste kiss on the corner of my mouth, “I can’t wait to see you again,” he whispered to me before slipping out the door.

  
I left at 4:30 for Levi's house, I didn't know how long it would take him to get home, and I didn't want to get there before him. Once I arrived, I heard the faint sound of music. I knocked and Levi almost immediately threw open the door and pulled me inside.

  
"Jesus," I mumbled, "eager much?"

  
"Maybe," he replied smirking at me.

  
"That thing actually works?" I said pointing to the record player, the source of the music, that had obviously been pulled from the corner of the room.

  
"Yeah," he said looking at it, "it was my mom's,” he turned to look at me, “she was always old fashioned."

  
"What song is playing?" I cursed myself for asking so many questions and not just getting to the point.

  
"I don't know," he replied, "the album cover wore off a long time ago, and I've forgotten the name. This is the only record I have that still works."

  
"You know," I said, "there's a music shop I know that sells vinyls."

  
"Really?" he asked his face lit up, "where? Can you take me?"

  
"Whoa," I said a little bit surprised by his reaction, "yeah, I can take you, but you need to calm down."

  
"Okay," he said walking over to his jacket and pulling his wallet out of the pocket. He then proceeded to shut off the record player, pull the needle out of the threads, and walk through the door, "let's go then."

  
"Alright," I said turning around and exiting the door I had just been pulled through. Levi walked beside me and reached his hand out as an invitation. An invitation that I gladly took. We rounded the hood of the car on opposite sides, Levi didn’t drop my hand until it was impossible for us to reach the doors without separating. He smiled at me, and I could only smile and shake my head at him. I drove him to the store, I didn't know Levi could be so excited about music. We walked in he locked his eyes on what he wanted and walked straight to the section that was marked with the sign “Vinyl”. I followed him slowly, and found that by the time I got there he was totally engrossed in the records. He had attached himself to a box that had bands from the 60's.

  
"You like 60's music?" I asked with only a little bit sass.

  
"Yes," he said stopping and looking me straight in the eye, before returning to browse through the box.

  
It was so cute, from time to time he would pull out an album and tell me something about it before putting it back. I liked it when he talked to me about things he was passionate about. Eventually he decided on a Troggs album, and we drove back to his apartment. He put on the record, and we picked up where we had left off yesterday. I had to admit the music was good, but it definitely didn’t fit the mood of Levi pulling off my clothes and dragging me into his bedroom.

I was down to my just my jeans by the time Levi pushed me backwards onto his bed. He stood above me and peeled off his shirt. His lips recaptured mine after their brief parting. Everything slipped out of focus as his lips left mine and started making their way down my chest. I arched into him as he slowly made his way down my body, as if it were his goal to map out every part of me with his mouth. I was already breathless. I had imagined this so many different ways, so many times, but the real thing was so much better than anything my mind could conjure up. I laced my fingers through his hair and pulled on the dark strands as he mouthed the fabric of my jeans.

"Just hurry up already," I forced out as he continued to tease me with agonizing slowness.

"Impatient are we?" He asked briefly replacing his mouth with his hand as he unbuttoned my jeans, "Good things come to those who wait, Eren."

Just the way he said my name was enough to get me drunk, and the way he slipped his hand beneath the fabric of my jeans as he pulled my pants zipper down with his teeth was what threw me over the edge. I sat up quickly and pulled Levi up to flip our positions. He scooted backwards in the bed until his feet no longer touched the floor. I pulled my pants all the way off before I placed my hands on either side of the board at the foot of the bed. He locked eyes with me and held my gaze as he waited for me to make a move.

"Strip," I said.

He smirked, "As you wish," he rolled his hips upwards as he pushed the waistband of his pants and boxer downwards, then off completely. My grip tightened on the board as I took in all of him. I couldn't say I was disappointed in anything about him. He ran his hands down his chest and legs as he sat up and crawled over to where I was standing, still star struck.

He grabbed the waistband of my boxers and pulled them down, I finished the move roughly before pushing him backwards and crawling between his legs. I started to move my hips against his, and he immediately countered with movements of his own. I ran my hands over his legs before I captured his mouth with mine. I moved my hands under his ass and squeezed, he moaned into my mouth and changed the way he was rubbing himself against me.

"You a pitcher or a catcher?" I asked not caring about the answer as long as he kept moving his hips against mine.

"I don't care," he replied pushing my cock closer to his ass, telling me exactly what he wanted.

I led him into another desperate kiss, before Levi broke it off far too soon for my taste. His hips stilled for a second and I silently mourned the parting, however brief it was, "Shit," he said propping himself up on his elbows to get a proper look at me, "I don't think I have anything here."

"Unprepared?" I asked smiling and returning to our previous momentum.

"Yes," he said, "sorry."

"It's not like there isn't other things we can do."

And with that the moment passed. Levi kicked himself back into gear, and I could feel the winds of my hurricane whipping furiously around me as he brought he wrapped his hand around both of us, increasing the friction.

"I want you so badly," he whined in my ear. I reached between us myself and felt the world start to spin as I helped him contain both of us. He had small hands.

"Then take me," I breathed into his ear.

I was on my back before I even realized what had happened. Levi had situated himself between my legs and looked up at me for confirmation before he bent down and took my cock in his mouth. I laced my fingers into his hair and once again pulled at the night sky. He looked like an angel with his mouth around my cock, his eyes closed in focus as he started to work his magic on me.

I could feel the pressure building behind the floodgates, but I was too caught up in the moment to think about warning him before I came. I managed to pull him backwards off me and shout his name before everything devolved into ecstasy. I had managed to come on the outside of his throat, and it would be a lie if I said it didn't turn me on. I flipped our positions and returned my mouth to his before starting to stroke him quickly. He writhed beneath me, and I reveled in every sound that spilt from his mouth.

Levi had much better timing than I did, "Eren," he painted out in my ear, "I-ah- I'm gonna come."   
I only responded by quickening my pace and leaning forward to kiss him again. He came in my hand and we both sat in recovery for several seconds before trying to speak.

"That was-" my breathing cut me off.

"Great," Levi finished for me.

"Yeah, really great," I replied looking over at him.

He caught my eyes and followed them down to his neck. He reached up and touched what I had left there, "Gross," he said with a smile before getting up and walking to the bathroom. I followed quickly behind him.

He pulled himself under the spray of the the shower and I washed my hands in the sink before leaving to go collect my clothing. After dressing I sat down on the bed, careful to avoid the places that signified the sheets would need to be washed. Levi had one nightstand by his bed. He was still in the shower, so I opened the top drawer. A bottle of lube and several condoms thumped against the wooded front of the drawer. So he hadn't been unprepared at all. I immediately wondered why he would have told me that he didn't have anything. He seemed like he had wanted as badly as I did.

The door to the bathroom opened and I immediately shut the drawer, leaving all my questions unanswered. Levi walked over to his dresser and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt before turning to look at me, "You okay?"

"Of course," I said returning his gaze. We fell into silence. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Seeing him in clothes was almost as bad as seeing him naked. I couldn't get the image of him beneath me out of his head. I wanted to make him come undone. I wasn't satisfied, not yet. I wanted to make him mine, heart and soul, body and mind. I wanted him to belong to me entirely. I had never wanted to posses someone before but Levi was more than just any other whore I could meet on the street, he was heaven sent. I was sure of it. I wanted him to want me as badly as I wanted him.

Levi stalked over to me, "Well, this is awkward," he said as he placed his hands on either side of me, bringing his face close to mine. All I could think about was kissing him.

"Isn't it always?" I asked tilting my head to the side in an invitation, which Levi took advantage of.

"It doesn't have to be," he said breaking off the kiss, "why not just accept that we fucked and move on?"

"I don't think we've actually fucked yet," I said pulling him forward until he was straddling my lap again.

"I guess that depends on what your definition of fucking is," he captured my mouth again, and made me ignite with want again. I knew that neither of us would be able to get up and ready, so to speak, for a while yet, but I was always a sucker for foreplay.   
"And what's your definition of fucking, Levi?" We had laid back on his bed again. He was son top of me, making it his mission to throw me into submission.

"I don't know," he paused and sat up, "I mean, your dick touched mine so I feel like that has to constitute some level of fucking, right?" He snorted, "That's not exactly a casual thing."

"Fair enough," I laughed before allowing myself to sink back into the thralls of want.

I didn't leave his apartment until late that night. He invited me to stay the night but it still felt almost too early for that. I was still feeling out this relationship, and I was afraid of getting in above my head too quickly.

Who was I kidding, I was already in over my head. I had denied the opportunity of an entire night of fooling around out of sheer stupidity. I had to have been dense, I couldn't deny that I wanted him more than anything else, but I had chosen to spend the rest of the night jerking myself off to the thought of Levi than actually doing things with him. By three in the morning I was practically physically kicking myself over my own choices. Trying to take things slow sucked. 


	7. Intrancement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update, but meh I'm a very inconsistent person, anyway, enjoy the chapter. P.S. this chapter may be slightly inspired by a meme I saw...

Halloween was coming up, and Levi’s friends, which Levi had told me were my friends too by extension, were planning a party. I was almost afraid about what a party thrown by all of them could be, but Levi told me not to worry. We had decided to go in coordinated costumes from The Babadook. Levi had wanted to go as the Babadook for the simple reason of, “Hey, it looks badass like Edward Scissorhands, but with less work.”

  
I couldn’t blame him, from the sketches he had drawn up, it was a pretty badass design. One thing that I learned about Levi over the next few weeks was that he took Halloween more seriously than almost anything else during October. Sure, everything else was important, but it all seemed to tally by the wayside to Halloweeen. The idea of coordinating costumes more or less was last minute, I had not given any thought to a costume before the actual day of the party. That morning had started with frantic thrift shopping for anything that could pass as a school uniform. In the end I ended up looking like an overdressed parent that would show up to a kindergarten gathering for their kid. But it was okay, I had seen the movie and I had to admit that with the way Levi had curled my hair I did sort of look like Samuel. Without Levi, however, my costume wouldn’t have made any sense.

  
“Ready to go?” Levi said as he exited the bathroom he had holed himself up in for the past few hours.

  
“Holy fuck!” I exclaimed, jumping as I took in the sight before me. He had painted a large open mouth filled with crooked, pearlescent teeth over most of his face, it even extended up over his nose, the rest of his face had been painted eerily gray, with black lining many of his features. He was dressed in all black, with his hair sticking out in every direction, and a black top hat to top it all off.

  
“What,” he said looking up at me, just looking at him sent a shiver down my spine.

  
“You just- I-,” I couldn't even get a full sentence out, “Don’t surprise me like that.”

  
“Do I scare you or something?” he said ominously, taking a step closer to me, I still towered over him, but that did not detract from how frightening he was. An added bonus was when he spoke his black lips pulled back to reveal his teeth and gums, which wouldn’t have been so creepy if not for the larger mouth that covered his face.

  
“Maybe,” I said taking a step back in response.

  
He smiled and took another step closer to me, “Close your eyes.”

  
I hesitantly shut my eyes and said a silent prayer for my sanity. I heard his footsteps as he got closer to me and placed his hands on either side of my face. I could tell he was on his toes as he kissed me.

  
I made the mistake of opening my eyes before he had been able to retreat a safe distance from me, “Jesus,” I breathed out as he came back into my view, it was no less shocking the second time I was surprised with it.

  
He smiled at me, “Come on we have to go.”

  
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding and opened the door for him. As we walked down the hall I realized he was much less horrifying from behind.

  
“Are you going to stay back there the whole time?” Levi asked, not turning to face me.

  
“Yes, I don’t want to shit myself before we get anywhere,” I joked.

  
Levi snorted, “Or do you just like looking at my ass?”

 

“Well, yes, that too,” I bit back. “Where is the party again?”

  
“Petra’s place,” he said as we reached the car.

  
The car ride was uneventful for the most part, accept every time I went to check my passenger side mirror I would silently die a little from shock. Everything about his face looked so gaunt and lifeless, he was an artist, I knew that, but the way he had managed to make himself look as though he were a character straight out of anyone's nightmares was still incredible.

  
We reached our final destination and jumped out of the car, there were a few others parked alongside the road. Levi knocked on the door and we were greeted quickly enough by and older looking woman who screamed and promptly shut the door again. We were both surprised, “Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked, wondering if we had just traumatized some random woman.

  
“Unless she moved in the past few days, this should be right.”

  
After a few more knocks on the door and several minutes, Petra answered the door and jumped, “Shit!” she exclaimed before starting to laugh, “You just terrified my mom.”

  
“I didn’t know your parents were in town,” Levi replied curtly.

  
“I know,” she said laughing harder, “it was a surprise, they didn’t even tell me they were coming,” she laughed some more before wiping her eyes and looking at us again, “Let me guess,” she paused, “the love child of Edward Scissorhands and the Cheshire Cat, and a pedofile?”

  
“Of course,” Levi said as he stepped inside, I followed behind him and we allowed Petra to lead us to the kitchen/dining room area.

  
The entire room seemed to jump as we entered the room, “Mom, the people at the door were Eren and Levi,” she said gesturing to us both, Levi nodded and waved.

  
“Oh,” she simply replied and turned to a man who I assumed was her husband, and resumed talking.

  
One thing Levi hadn’t told me about the party was that is was a “costumes optional” sort of gathering, meaning people just put on some orange and black and a hat or something and just called it good. It was much more of an adult's drinking wine party than it was a costume party. We left early, much too embarrassed to stay the entire time, once safely in the car again, Levi turned to me, “Wanna go scare some kids?”

  
“We are not going to terrify children on Halloween.”

  
He leaned back in his seat, “Why not? Halloween is supposed to be scary, and I’m sure there are some kids out trick or treating still. It would be easy.”

  
“No, I will not allow you to traumatize children, Levi.”

  
He tried to give me a look, but under all of the makeup he had on I couldn’t tell what it was. He sat back and sighed, “Fine.”   
We did in fact end up traumatizing some children that were walking on the sidewalks in the neighborhood. We were going slow enough that they could see into the car, and were able to get a good look at Levi, washed in the darkness of night. We sent about three groups of both children and teenagers screaming away from us. By the time we arrived at my apartment Levi was almost in tears he was laughing so hard. We were both out of the car almost immediately as it stopped, and as soon as the door to my apartment was unlocked Levi made a beeline for my bathroom.

  
“I’m not going to hold myself responsible for whatever happens to your shower, sorry in advance,” he shouted at me through the door, he was undoubtedly already undressing.

  
I laughed in response and walked to my bedroom before pulling off the clothes I would hopefully never wear again. Once I had stripped all the way down, I walked over to the door to the bathroom and slipped inside.

  
“Eren?” Levi asked from behind the shower curtain. I could see his outline against the fabric.

  
“Yes?” I replied moving closer to the shower.

  
“As flattering and exciting as it is that you are willing to surprise me in the shower, I really think you should wait a few more minutes,” he said, “I think I look more horrifying now than I did before.”

  
“I don’t believe that’s possible,” I said in response.

  
He whipped the curtain back to reveal his face, and I hated to admit that he was right. Whatever he had used on his face did not come off in the water it had just smeared it across his face and down his neck. I must have been making a face, because Levi was quick to pull his head back and laugh, “Give me like ten more minutes.”

  
I sighed and exited the bathroom, I had been officially scared by Levi’s Halloween costume. I tried to wipe the memory from my mind. Instead of dwelling on the thought, I got everything ready for my second appearance, I hadn’t been prepared the first time so it might have been a blessing that spared me from an embarrassing I-forgot-everything-we-need-in-the-bedroom moment. As I waited I looked out my window, it was snowing. I sneered at the white flakes falling from the sky and dropped the blinds. I disliked winter, and I disliked the snow even more. Winters were too cold, to dreary, to bland for my taste. There was nothing to do in winter, and the holiday season more or less just depressed me. I sat down on the bed and let my thoughts consume me.

  
I didn’t notice the water shut off, nor was my immediate attention directed towards Levi emerging from the bathroom dressed only in a towel, “Did you forget about me?” He asked sounding a little disappointed.

  
I looked over at him briefly before returning my gaze to my hands, “Yeah, I did, sorry.”

  
He silently padded over to where I had placed myself and sat down next to me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder. He kissed the side of my neck before asking, “What are you thinking about?”

  
“I don’t know,” I said laying down and dragging him with me to lay on the bed, “Winter just depresses me, I’m not ready for it yet.”

  
He propped himself up on one elbow and used his free hand to trace patterns on my chest, “It’s not winter yet, there’s still some time.”

  
“It’s snowing,” I said looking up at him, “It’s cold and everything dies in winter, I hate it.”

  
“Well,” he said, stilling his hand on my arm, and leaning down to kiss my neck again, “if it gets too cold, I’ll warm you up.”

  
I was going to tell him that as much as I loved sex, it wasn’t especially helpful right now, but I remembered that I had sort of promised him something, so I gave in and allowed him to sling his legs around me and kiss me gently. If winter was on it’s way, then perhaps I would take him up on his offer because laying there with him between the sheets of my bed made if feel like summertime again.

 


	8. Enchanted

The holidays were a blur in my mind, between sleeping (my newfound favorite hobby), trying to get publishers interested in my writing, classes, and Levi, I had almost no time to spare. My birthday (which had not gone unnoticed by Levi), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Levi’s birthday passed so quickly I was almost unsure that they had passed at all. New Years was the only holiday that stood out to me.

  
We had been invited to a New Year's Eve party, which I had been assured by Petra would not include a surprise visit from anyone’s parents. It was bitterly cold all day and I had elected to spend the entire day wrapped up under a duvet and pillows. I was not surprised when there was a knock on my front door, but it still took me several seconds to find the motivation to get out of bed and answer the door. I wrapped myself in the duvet and dragged it along with me as I went to answer whoever was knocking. Levi was standing in the hallway, I stepped back to let him further into my space.

  
He smiled sadly at me before asking, “Did you sleep all day again?”

  
“Yes,” I answered walking over to the couch and flopping down, I already had a splitting headache, one of the less awesome side effects of sleeping all day. Levi set down a bottle of what looked like champagne on the island counter, and walked over to where I was curled up. He kneeled down next to my head and looked at me. I hated winter more than I could ever say.

  
“Do you still want to come to the party tonight?” he asked as he brushed my hair off my forehead, “You’ll feel better if you get up and do something,” he was right. As much as I hated to admit it if I didn’t get up and do something, everything would just get worse.

  
“I know,” I said pulling the covers up to my neck, opened my eyes to look at him, “will you shower with me?”

  
“Of course,” he said standing up, pulling me to my feet, and leading me to the bathroom. My hands started to prune by the time we actually got to washing up.

  
I had to admit that a shower and sex always were a pick me up. I flopped backwards onto my bed after drying off, not bothering to put clothes on just yet. Levi was close on my heels, and soon way laying next to me.

  
“We should get dressed, the party already started,” he said looking over at the alarm clock on my nightstand.

  
I groaned and rolled over on top of him, “We could just stay here, you know,” I kissed down his jaw and began to suck on his neck and collarbone, there were already a few marks there from our previous escapades so I was shameless in my taunting.

  
“They’re already expecting us,” Levi said as he tangled his fingers into my hair, moaning when I sucked the base of his neck.   
After a few more moments of teasing he pushed me backwards, “We really need to go,” he said with a smile.

  
I sighed before kissing him one more time and getting off him, “Fine.”

  
Levi returned to the bathroom to find his clothes as I looked through my drawers to find something to wear. I had no idea what the dress code would be, “What should I wear?” I called out to Levi.

  
“It’s just going to be all of our friends, maybe a few others, it doesn’t matter what you wear,” he paused, “but I wouldn’t recommend going naked.”

  
I laughed at his statement, “Well there go my plans,” I eventually decided on a t-shirt and jeans. Levi emerged from the bathroom, he was dressed casually as well.

  
“You clean up well, kid,” I said it didn’t come out as lightheartedly as I wanted it to.

  
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” he replied before taking my hand and leading me out to the living room and eventually out to the car.

  
We arrived at the party fashionably late, there were only a few hours until midnight. Those hours were spent mostly at an almost too close distance to strangers. Levi had been wrong in stating that there would only be a few people, it seemed like half our friends’ school had come to the party, I only saw people I knew for a few seconds at a time. Levi and I didn’t separate, I was afraid that if he got away from me I would never be able to find him, and I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the night alone.

  
As the new year approached champagne was passed out, Levi showed me the bottle that he had brought and explained that it had taken him almost all day to find a place that sold it. He had somehow managed to find alcohol free champagne. I had told him about my sobriety, and he had been doing his best to respect my decisions. I didn’t however miss Levi pouring the contents of a different bottle into his glass. I decided not to say anything I was the sober one, he wasn’t. While we were in the kitchen a woman who assured us she wasn’t drunk, just excited, handed out paper hats with the new date printed across the front in sparkling gold font.

  
“I will not wear that,” Levi had to shout to me over the din of the party. He had once again swatted the festive hat away from his head.

  
“Come on,” I replied, “it’s so sparkly, don’t deny that you love it.”

  
He wrinkled his nose at the prospect, but didn’t resist when I placed the hat on him, “Are you happy now?” He looked up at me and feigned being distraught, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  
The thudding of the music was drowned out by people’s screams as they began to count down to midnight. There were still twenty seconds left. Levi held up his glass and I tapped it with mine before we both downed the contents.

  
Fifteen seconds, Levi pulled my face down to his, “I want to tell you something,” he shouted at me.

  
“Go for it,” I replied. Ten seconds left.

  
“I-” he was cut off by a rally of cheers, when the chanting didn’t quiet down, he pulled me close to him and spoke directly in my ear, five seconds, “I love you.”

  
I pulled back to look at him, he looked so earnest. Shouts of, “Happy New Year!” erupted around us and I pulled Levi in for a kiss. He wrapped his arms around my neck, I pulled back so I could get my mouth close enough to his ear, “I love you too, happy New Year.”

  
He grabbed my face and pulled me back in for another kiss. I his face closer to mine again, “Do you want to head out?”

  
He nodded in response, held my hand as he led me towards the front door. We picked up our jackets and headed hurriedly to the car.

  
That night was filled with gentle kisses and gentler caresses, “I love you” wound between each of them.

 


	9. Complete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank all of you guys for all the nice comments, they really make my day. Someone was asking if I had a tumblr or instagram and I do, but I don't post about my writing at all on them. If you're still interested though here they are:  
> Tumblr: nonamesatan   
> Instagram: jupiters_hurricane  
> Thank you again for reading, I hope you enjoy the chapter!!

It felt like the snow was melting before I had even had a chance to take a deep breath. I welcomed spring, and it seemed dead set on making an entrance, because it warmed up so quickly that I was afraid to drive on the roads most days, they were rivers at this point.

  
Levi and I got out of school in early spring, which was always a plus. I had one less thing to worry about, but our friends would not get out until the beginning of summer. Not that I minded them not being able to interrupt our alone time, but it did get dull after a while. I decided that I wouldn't be going home for the summer, and after an only slightly argumentative phone call with my dad, the plan was set. The only condition that I was given was that I would have to call him more than I had been the past few months. 

  
My bedroom was on the corner of my apartment building so there were two walls with large windows almost covering all of the space Between the floor and ceiling. This proved to be a curse in the winter, but in the summer it was more of a blessing. The building didn’t have a cooling system, despite how hot the weather got during the summer, but by opening both of the windows a nice cross breeze was created that kept it nice and cool in the room.

  
It was late morning, and the sun was hitting my apartment building at the most atrocious angle that made the entire building work like an oven, it didn’t help that Levi and I had just spent the better part of the morning fucking like our lives depended on it. We were both still sweaty and trying to catch our breath by the time I realized that it, in fact, wasn’t just Levi that was making me so hot and bothered. I rolled off my bed and opened one window as Levi opened the other. I stood by the window for a while longer looking out at the forest behind the building. The trees were starting to fower. The curtains attracted my attention as they rustled slightly in the artificial breeze. Levi had made them for me; he had insisted that the blinds I had were, "uglier than shit," and had taken it upon himself to make me two sets of decorative blackout curtains. He had wormed his way into my life and had no intention of leaving. I couldn't lie, I didn't want him to leave either. 

  
“Come back to me,” Levi called out to me.

  
I turned to see Levi sprawled out on the bed, reaching out to me. It was an invitation I couldn’t resist. We laid together and basked in the comfort of being so close. Levi was asleep fairly quickly, and I drifted in and out of consciousness, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the breeze.

  
The ring of a phone jolted us both into wakefulness. We were both content with not answering. It must have only been a few seconds from when the tone ended when it began to ring again. Levi groaned and rolled over to pick his phone up off the nightstand.

  
He accepted the call and put it on speaker phone, "What?" his voice was so rough and demanding after he had woken up.

  
"Were you just asleep?" Petra's voice came through the receiver.

  
"Yeah," Levi said turning his gaze to me. I rolled over onto my stomach next to him and started to trace the side of his body with my hand. Levi put the phone on his chest and closed his eyes again.

  
"Well, I'm sorry, but I really need to talk with you guys."

  
"And who exactly is the other person you need talk to?"

  
"Eren, of course," she replied.

  
"How do you know Eren’s even here?" Levi bit back with all the sass he could muster this soon after waking up.

  
"You guys are literally within 5 feet of each other at pretty much any given moment," she started, "it would have been more absurd to guess that he wouldn't be there."

  
Levi sighed, Petra was right, "That's fair, where should we meet you?"

  
"The pizza place we always go to," Petra replied, "see you soon."

  
"Yeah," Levi replied hanging up the phone.

  
He promptly placed the phone on the nightstand and pushed my shoulder until I rolled over and he resumed his previous position.

  
"Aren't we going to meet Petra?" I asked.

  
"Mhm," Levi replied snuggling his face into my chest, "she can wait fifteen more minutes."

  
Fifteen minutes turned into an hour and another more forceful phone call, but eventually we were both up and dressed.

  
"Where are we meeting her?" I asked she hadn't specified where exactly we were supposed to go.

  
"There's a place on the other side of town that we all used to go to," Levi started, "it’s a little hole-in-the-wall pizzeria. I’ll tell you how to get there.”

  
We ended up on the other side of town in front of a small brick building. Levi stepped out of the car and stretched his arms above his head before placing them on his lower back and turning to smile at me.

  
“Does your back hurt?” I asked smiling back at him.

  
He was squinting in the bright sun that shone through his hair and illuminated his face, “Yes. I wonder whose fault that is?”

  
“You’ve never complained before,” I said starting towards the door.

  
He followed me closely, reaching his hand out for me to hold, “And I’m not complaining now.”

  
I looked over at him and watched the shadows bounce over his face in the bright light, “I love you.”

  
“I love you too,” he said returning my gaze.

  
We walked through the doors. It was dark inside, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. There were tables everywhere, booths all along the walls, and a large bar in the center. It was dingy, and definitely not somewhere you would hang out unless you wanted to get into trouble, “Why do you guys come here?”

  
"They have cheap pizza, and they don't ID at the bar," he responded looking for Petra. We found her nestled with the rest of our friends in a booth near the back of the restaurant.

  
"Is it bad that I’m afraid,” he said jokingly looking up at me.

  
“When they’re all together you should be afraid,” I responded as we walked towards their table.

  
"Petra," Levi said as a greeting as he sat down in the booth, "what do you need?" I sat down next to him.

  
"What makes you think I want anything, I could just have invited you here to eat pizza."

  
Levi raised one of his eyebrows and stared at her, “If we’re just eating pizza I’m going home, I was in the middle of doing something.”

  
“I’m something,” I deadpanned turning my attention up from the designs inlaid in the woodworking on the table, to Petra. It earned me a couple of laughs that awkwardly worked their way around the table. 

  
“True,” Levi said turning his attention back to Petra, “but that wasn’t the point I was trying to make.”

  
"Okay, okay," she finally broke, "I do actually have a favor to ask you."

  
"Okay, shoot." he said leaning back. It was obvious to me he was trying to find a comfortable position to sit in, unsuccessfully, might I add.

  
"For my final this semester I need to write and produce a play," she said slowly, I had recently learned that she was a theatre major. She wanted to direct Broadway productions, "everyone else already agreed to do it, and to fill all the spots in the script we just need you two," she turned to me first, "Eren, are you in?"

  
I looked over at Levi, "I'm in if you are," he said picking up the menu.

  
"Okay," I said, "I'm in."

  
"Levi?" Petra asked.

  
"Yeah, I'm in too," he replied slowly.

  
The waitress walked up to the table and asked to take our orders, she sounded so disinterested in everything we were saying. Once we placed our orders, she walked away and Petra began speaking again.

  
"Great! I’m glad you guys are on board," Petra reached down to her bag and pulled out two scripts, "these are yours' I already placed you in a roll, but nothing is set in stone yet, so we can shuffle things around still if it doesn't work out," she sat back In her chair and Oluo put his arm around her. Their relationship had seemingly grown on Levi, he made no comments about it.

  
"This is a female role," Levi said after reading a little bit into the script, he once again cocked his eyebrow at Petra.

  
"The only one in the entire production," she returned smirking at him.

  
"I’d pay to see that," I said. He glanced at me, and then turned his attention back to Petra.

  
"And why did you cast me for it? Can’t Hanji or Nabana take it?" he asked.

  
"Well," she replied, "Hanji wanted a different roll, and you would look the best in a dress, and you and Eren," she said pointing at me, "are love interests in the play, so it would feel weird casting you as anyone else."

  
"That's true," he mumbled going back to the script.

  
"And also I wasn't able to get a good time slot on the stage, so we will have to meet everyday, at eight at night in the campus auditorium," she paused and looked at the two of us, "our campus."

  
I asked, "When is this going to start?"

 

"Tomorrow," Petra replied as a pizza was set down on the table, "But today," she continued after the server had left, "I thought we could go back to my place and start doing read throughs."

  
We began to discuss logistics as we ate. We would all have to do tech work, and try and get everything together in time. Petra began to talk about her vision of the play, and how we could make it just like what she had imagined. We finished everything, Petra paid for lunch, and we left. Everyone had come in Petra's car, which was packed, so in addition to Levi, I got to drive Mike and Erwin. Mike got the front seat on the claim that his legs were the longest. Both Mike and Erwin joked around a bit about Levi being cast in the only female role, and Levi only replied with snide comments about how he was going to be the hottest girl they’d ever seen, and they would undoubtedly be jealous that he was taken. I couldn’t disagree with that. It was obvious that there was some tension in the back seat about halfway through our ride. Neither Levi nor Erwin spoke directly to one another for the majority of the ride after the jokes had settled down. I would have pushed the issue, but I didn't need to interrogate either of them infront of everyone else. 

  
Eventually we arrived at Petra's place and everyone unloaded. Petra was the only one among us all that had a real house, not an apartment. I had been in it before at her Halloween party, but I had never really spent that much anywhere other than her living room. From what I could tell though she kept the place in peak condition at all times. Her lawn was mowed, and the windows were clean, everything was so picture-perfect, it could have passed as an empty house. Nothing was out of place. I had to admit I was jealous. I could barely afford the place I was in, and here she was able to afford a decent size house, not to mention that it was gorgeous. 

  
We all congregated at the front door as Petra unlocked it, "I guess we could practice in the living room. There’ll be a lot more room in there-" I zoned out of the conversation as we walked into the house. I wondered silently if I would ever have a place like this. Somewhere that I owned, a place that I filled entirely with the things I loved. I wondered if I would ever have someone else to share a place like this with, and as I looked over to the small ravenette to my left I realized that I knew exactly who I would want to make a home with. 

We all piled inside after Petra and followed her and Oluo to the living room. I assumed they lived together, and I had always wanted to ask, after how long I’d been told they had been together, but I didn’t want to interrogate Petra about her personal life right now. Plus I could always just ask Levi later. We congregated in the living room and arranged ourselves on the various couches and chairs scattered about the room.

  
"Alright," Petra said with a certain sternness that didn't fit her. She was trying too hard to be the perfect director already, "let's just read through the script once or twice then we can start blocking if we have time."

  
We all began to read, and the reason she cast each person as each character became clear for the most part. She had obviously put a lot of thought into everything already, and I almost felt bad. I was fairly sure that I would come nowhere near the expectations she had for me. I didn't want to let her down. It was a comedy for the most part, with a larger overhanging plot that was actually quite depresssing. As a writer I was impressed, it took great skill to make something so horrible into something that everyone could laugh at. Hanji was a dapper young postman, who was actually kind of a pervert when it came down to it. Erwin was a rule abiding landlord. Mike was the owner of the house cleaning service. Oluo was a next door neighbor who cared deeply for everyone. Nabana was also a neighbor, unlike Oluo though she was the neighbor from hell. I was a young man who lived between the two said neighbors, and Levi was an employee of Mike’s business, and was definitely a whore. 

  
We read through the play twice before we started to work out the blocking. I found Levi's character hilarious, and Petra had been very right to put him in that role. Miss Venice almost seemed like an extension of his personality. She however was much more comfortable with her sexuality than Levi himself. PDA was not something that he was comfortable taking past handholding, I respected that. He had to explained it to me, saying that he believed that a lot of things should just be kept between the two of us, he liked the privacy of not putting everything on display. I enjoyed it as well, it made everything that happened between us seem more special, more intimate. 

  
Anytime we were supposed to be onstage together, we were pretty much all over each other and I could tell it made him uncomfortable. It was the first time we had ever done anything close to this in front of anyone other than one another. We were all tired, ready to go home, and getting frustrated by the time Levi brought his thoughts to Petra's attention, “Can I change some of this a little bit, it’s just weird for me.”

  
"I thought you said you were in love," Oluo said under his breath, "this wouldn't be a problem if you actually were," He was not as quiet as he wished he had been, the room went silent. I swear I could hear everyone's breathing. I didn't know what to feel. We were all frustrated and just wanted to get this over with. I could understand Oluo not wanting to spend extra time re-going over everyhting we had just done, but he had aimed low. 

I heard Levi inhale sharply once before turning his head to face Oluo; Levi gave him one of the most scary looks I had ever seen, "The fuck did you just say?" Oluo didn't respond, neither did anyone else, Levi took another deep breath before stating sternly, "The reason I don't want to do all of this," he started in a lowly, "is that I actually have respect for our relationship, and it's intimacy. And I'm sorry that you can't understand that."

  
They stared each other down for a few more seconds before Petra spoke up, "It'll just be us and my professor when we do the final performance, but if you really don't want to do all of it that's okay," Petra sounded as uncomfortable as everyone else felt.

  
"I'm going to use the restroom," I said bluntly, I grabbed Levi's hand and dragged him along with me.

  
We ended up in a bathroom, "Levi," I said turning and looking at him after I closed the door. He had his arms crossed and was standing so stiffly. He didn't speak to me for a few seconds.

  
"It's not that I don't love you-," he said visibly upset now.

  
"I never said that it was," I cut him off gently, "I understand what you mean, and I would like it if you didn't everything in the script as well, I just think you need a second to cool down."

  
"Okay," he said walking over to me and wrapping his arms around my torso. I placed my hands on his waist and just held him for a while. I could tell he was angry. He wanted to prove Oulo wrong I knew that but he didn’t want to invade our privacy to do it. After a couple seconds of hugging, Levi let go and led me out the door. We could both hear several voices arguing, but as we rounded the corner, they quitted. We sat down, everyone was stiff. No one seemed to even be able to make eye contact with me or Levi.

  
It took a couple seconds but Oluo eventually said, "I'm sorry. I crossed a line, I wasn't thinking."

  
"It’s fine," Levi grunted picking up the script and resuming from the place he had left off.

  
The rest of rehearsal went on without a hitch, which was a relief for everyone. Levi and Oulo were steadfast friends, but when they butted heads it was always an ordeal. We were all eager to leave by the time it was over. Levi and I retired to my apartment afterwards, and pulled one another close as we fell asleep. There was time to memorize lines tomorrow. I swear Levi spent more time here than he did at his own apartment. He was here almost every night, he even had spare clothes and the like that had made my dresser their home. I didn’t mind it at all, in fact I welcomed the domesticality that came with living in such close proximity to another person. He had long since consumed all my thoughts, it was high time that he took up the same amount of space in my physical life as well.

  
The next evening, rehearsal went well, Levi and I had gone over the blocking and cut out some of the most uncomfortable parts. Petra had reviewed the changes we had made and agreed that it was still just as good this way as it had been before. I was simply happy to be a part of everything so I didn’t mind any revisions that had to be made. We went through the blocking of the performance several times and smoothed out some of the rough patches before we started talking about the technical business of costumes, lighting, and set.

  
Logistics proved to be the most challenging aspect of the entire production. We didn’t have much time or money and in the end it was decided that everyone would just fend for themselves. If you needed something you would get it.

  
We split up after rehearsal, Levi and I had the longest commute to and from. We were, however, more than happy to have somewhere to be, it got us both out of the house. Plus late night driving conversations were always a bonding experience.

  
“Okay,” Levi said between laughs. His laugh was infectious, his smile lit up the room and his laugh captured everyone’s attention. Levi had such a presence, even when he didn't try to capture anyone's attention, he did. He could illuminate a room with a few words and keep his audience's attention wrapt with even the most careless conversation, “this one is a deal breaker, coffee or tea?”

  
We had been laughing and going back and forth with questions, “Why not both?”

  
“No, you have to choose on this one,” he replied looking at me.

  
“Coffee,” I said looking over at him. His cheeks were flushed from laughing. His hair was disheveled and he looked tired but more happy than I think I had ever seen him before, “I live off coffee, I swear I’m practically made of the stuff by now.”

  
“Really?” Levi asked, “Tea is so much more mellow, though."

  
“I know but I don’t think I could live without coffee,” I replied turning my attention back to the road, “dogs or cats?”

  
“Dogs,” there was no hesitation in his reply.

  
“Why?”

  
“I mean I like you don’t I?” He replied grinning at me.

  
“Okay,” I laughed, “Wow, rude.”

  
He smiled at me as we pulled into the parking lot of my apartment. I swear he practically lived here now. I didn’t mind. As soon as we were inside we went about a somewhat normal routine, we would talk and eat, then Levi would go off to take a shower, and the rest of the night depended on the way things worked out from there.

  
"Levi?" I shouted to him from the couch. He was in the shower, as usual.

  
"Yeah?" His reply was muffled by the wall that separated us.

  
"Do you want to go somewhere tomorrow?" We had both been too exhausted lately to do much of anything together.

  
"Yeah, sure," he replied, “give me like three seconds and I’ll be out.”

  
“One,” I shouted, “Two!”

  
“Fuck you Eren, you know what I meant,” I could hear the smile on his face, and I couldn’t help but laugh as well. I loved giving him a hard time.

  
He finally emerged from the bathroom adorned in very familiar sweatpants and one of the shirts that had somehow made its way to my apartment permanently. His hair was still wet and he had run his fingers backwards through it, pushing it against his scalp. Despite the sweatpants he looked hot, I smirked at him, “What?” He said smiling and cocking his head slightly to the side.

  
I turned back to sit forward on the couch again, “Those don’t look like your pants.”

  
“Mmh,” he said walking over to where I was sitting, “you're right, they’re some hot guy’s, that I may or may not have stolen after he fucked me.”

  
“So you wear them just because some hot guy fucked you?” I said playing along, he was now standing directly in front of me, arms crossed.

  
“No,” he said placing his hands on either side of me. Our faces were so close, “I’m wearing them because I happen to like said hot guy,” he kissed me, “maybe even love him.”

  
“Maybe?” I questioned pulling him onto my lap.

  
“Most definitely,” he corrected looping his arms around my neck.

  
I nuzzled my head into his neck, “I love you too,” we sat in silence for a few seconds before my mind was drawn back to the matter at hand, "I was thinking we could go to a garden or something tomorrow. We passed the city gardens on the way back and the flowers were all starting to bloom,” I pulled back from our embrace and kissed his cheek, “I thought it would be fun.”

  
"I would love to go," he said looking at me, "it seems like it would be a good time.”

  
He could use the time to make some sketches. He had fallen behind on his work recently, he told me that his main source of income was selling his artwork, most of the canvasses back at his house with people were commissions that need to be picked up or pair for. We lived in a place that valued artistry, it made me happy that this allowed Levi to make a living off doing what he loved. He liked to paint flowers, hence why I was taking him to the garden, almost as much as he liked to paint people, but not nearly as much as he liked to paint and draw me. He’d tried to be subtle about it at first but had since given up on trying to hide the numerous portraits and sketches he had made of me. I don't really understand why he drew so much inspiration from me, I didn't think I had any especially desirable characteristics. I didn't have anything special about me, I didn't have a face that was exceptionally easy to look at, or a body that would make people drool, and yet Levi still loved to draw and me, seemingly endlessly. I don't know why, but it made me happy that he still liked me that much, even if I wasn't eye candy. I had to admit that I was guilty of the same pleasures though. I had written so many things about him, and if I could draw anything more than stick figures, I couldn't deny he would be the only thing in everything I made.

  
Levi was staring at me, perhaps not entirely on purpose, the position we were in kind of forced him to look at me, but I was flattered nonetheless. He looked lost in thought as he pushed me hair back from my forehead. 

  
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.

  
"Because you're beautiful," he said still not looking away.

  
I turned away and tried to cover the smile that threatened to show how pleased those words had made me, "Shut up." I eventually couldn't hide it anymore and let out a chuckle.

  
"If you don’t think you're hot then you must’ve never looked in a mirror," he replied coolly.

  
"Stop staring at me," I finally blurted out, I couldn’t even convince myself that I was serious with the tone I used.

  
"No," Levi said tightening his arms around my neck to pull me closer to his face.

  
"Stop," I said in the same voice trying to push him away.

  
"Never," he replied again a soft smile played at his lips.

  
“I don’t look nice,” I said looking at him, “plus I haven’t showered in more than twenty-four hours, so I wouldn’t keep me from the bathroom for too long.”

  
“‘She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something,’” He replied before loosening his grip on me, “Secondly, really? That’s disgusting.”

  
“That was beautiful,” I said leaning back to see him more fully, “And yeah, totally haven't showered in like a full day.”

  
“Ew, gross,” Levi said crawling off my lap, “Ya nasty.”

  
I stood up and headed for the bathroom, “That’s me, honey, get used to it.”

  
After my much needed shower, returned to the living room to see Levi laying on the couch, he had put on some B-movie and was obviously not interested. I walked over to him, he pulled his legs up, and I sat down before he extended them again. I pulled his feet further towards the other side of the couch, he made a small noise of surprise and laughed. His thighs were now on my lap which gave me easy access. I tried to watch the movie, but soon realized why Levi had lost interest.

  
"You should give me a nickname," I said, turning to look at him.

  
He propped himself up on his elbows, "What is ‘dumbass’ not good enough for you?"

  
I laughed and shook my head, “No, as much as I love being called a dumbass, I think you can do better.”

  
"Okay," he said tipping his head back, “what about,” he trailed off as he thought, "what about honey?"

  
"Wow you really had to dig deep for that one, huh?" I said sarcastically.

  
"Not honey in that way," he replied gently, "like the honey you put on toast."

  
"Like actual sugary syrup paste?" I asked.

  
"Of course," he said smiling at me, “hun for short.”

  
“Yours can be babe then,” I replied.

  
"Hmm," he laughed a little, "it's perfect."

  
As we tried to watch the movie, Levi fell asleep. I carefully turned off the TV and the receiver. The room went dark, I carefully snaked my arms under his shoulders and knees. I carefully picked him up and tried not to wake the sleeping beauty in my arms as I carried him into the bedroom and covered us both with the blankets.

 


	10. Old Vacancies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry it's been so long, I have no excuses, enjoy the chapter!

Rehearsal went almost too well for the next few weeks. It was a short production so memorizing lines wasn’t too much of an issue, even for me. Costumes started to come together, Levi had been able to find a somewhat reasonable dress for the role in the school’s costume closet everyone else had clothes that worked for their characters, and the props and set had all started to come together. The final dress rehearsal arrived much more quickly than I had anticipated, the next day was the performance date. Petra and Hanji were late, which worried all of us we had to go through everything at least twice tonight, and by being here and not being able to do anything, we were just wasting our time.

  
We were all fidgeting, ready to get going by the time Petra ran into the backstage dressing area, she panted out, "Sorry, we had to pick up one more costume."

  
“We all have costumes already,” Erwin said looking over at her.

  
“I know,” she paused and looked around the room, her eyes locked onto Levi, “we found a better one for you,” she made a come here motion towards him and headed out the door. Hanji made an appearance in the doorway holding a black dry cleaning bag, as well as other little accessories. She reached into the room and grabbed her costume off the rack, before pulling Levi off in the direction of the bathrooms.

  
I was sort of looking forward to seeing Levi in another dress. Petra had been right when she said he had the figure for it, if his ambition of painting for a living didn’t work out, he could always be a drag queen. I would pay to see that.

  
I swear I jumped when Hanji threw the door open.

  
"Where's Levi?" Erwin asked. I was glad that I wasn't the only person disappointed that he hadn’t made an appearance.

  
"He may be having a little bit of a hard time getting dressed," Hanji replied with a giggle, locking eyes with me. Petra shot her a glance that could kill, but it didn't damper her delight.

  
We all waited impatiently, we were ready and anxious to start. It was now or never. The door opened again with less fervor, but we were all sure of who was making an appearance this time. No one made any comments, or even laughed. He looked so unironically good he could almost pass fully as a woman. His facial features were a bit too sharp to look completely feminine, but with everything else it almost didn’t matter. The dress was a navy blue, had light pink ruffles around the seams on the front and back of the dress, there was a large light pink bow in the back. It had full length sleeves with black lace around the cuffs and the bottom of the dress, it was much shorter than the other dress had been, it only went down to a little above the center of his thighs and showed off the beautifully long legs that forced the image of them wrapped around my waist to the forefront of my mind. He was wearing a matching pair of navy blue thigh-high stockings that melted perfectly into matte blue stilettos that looked like they were created to fit his feet. I was almost on my knees by the time Petra decided to say anything.

  
"Try to sound more like a lady when you speak from now on, speak from your upper chest, it’ll bring it all together," Petra called from the other side of the room.

  
Levi furrowed his brows and stood up straighter before trying to speak a little higher, “Like this,” he was willing to do so much for his friends, I would have been mortified if I had been in his place.

  
"What?" Said Erwin practically falling out of his chair as he laughed in shock.

  
"I said fuck you," Levi responded lightheartedly, still in the voice that really did bring the look together.

  
"Oh my god," said Petra, "it's perfect!"

  
"Thank you,” he said, his voice cracked halfway through and he placed his hand on his chest and checkled, “I can’t,” he said in his normal tone, “Jesus, I can’t even take myself seriously like this.”

  
"So," Hanji butted in, "what do you guys think?"

  
Levi turned to face all of us, striking a pose that only he could have pulled off under the circumstances.

  
"There's a bit too much room on top," Nabana spoke up. It was true, the dress was fairly low cut and it was obvious that Levi was lacking anything that even remotely resembled breasts.

  
Petra looked over at him, "Yeah, there is, I’m honestly just glad that the rest of it fits though. We'll have a solution for that tomorrow."

  
“Petra you’re one of my best friends and I would do anything for you, but I don’t think I can grow tits before tomorrow,” he said looking at her and smiling, a genuine smile. I had been doubtful from the start that Levi was enjoying this whole deal, but the smile he flashed Petra reassured me that everything was fine. He enjoyed being here with his friends.

  
"Damn,” she played along, “and here I thought you cared about me getting a good grade on my final.”

  
"Can you even walk in those?" I asked gesturing at those damn shoes that made me weak in the knees. Levi looked me up and down before smirking and strutting towards me. He made the backstage area into a catwalk, and in doing so had captured everyone's attention. He didn’t miss a beat or stumble at all. He had been built for the stage, I was sure of it. He could command a room's attention with just a few steps. He walked up so close to me, I stood up straight, he was only a centimeter or so shorter than me now, “How in the hell? I don’t think I could even function in those,” I said, I was glad for the up close and personal view.

  
"You really think I haven't tried these things before?" he shot back with a smile, “Plus like two years ago I went through a phase where I thought heels made me super hot, and I wore them everywhere.”

  
“It’s true,” Hanji piped up.

  
“Well, I mean,” I looked down at the rest of him, “you weren’t wrong,” he smiled at me and shoved my shoulder playfully.

  
"Anyway," Petra said clapping her hands, "shall we get started?"

  
Everything was seamless that night. No one dropped any lines, there were no mistakes in blocking or with the props. We were able to run through the entire thing twice before we called it a night.

  
“I think that you’re all ready for tomorrow,” Petra said as she joined us backstage, “I’m so happy, it’s exactly like I imagined it. Thank you,” she paused, “Anyway, Levi take good care of that dress, it’s a rental.”

  
He popped off a half-assed salute from the wrong side, “Got it.”

  
Petra left to set the stage, as well as give us time to change out of our costumes.

  
I couldn’t keep my eyes off Levi as he disrobed. He reached behind him and pulled down on the zipper revealing the skin underneath that I had become so familiar with. He shrugged the sleeves off and the dress hit the floor before stepped out of it, not necessarily striking poses as he did, but it mesmerized me either way. He was left in just a pair of black spandex, socks, and heels. I had given up entirely on focusing on what I was doing.

  
I often felt like I had to dress up for Levi, I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way but I fully believed that his perfect lips and a pair of socks were enough costume for me. He still took my breath away, no matter how many times I saw him, no matter how many times he had undressed himself for me, I was caught off guard every time. No matter how many times I looked into those eyes I still felt like I was looking into his soul anew. I was finally able to avert my eyes, I chose to look froward and take care of myself, until I could look upon him again in a more private setting.

  
I finished redressing myself and started towards the stage. Erwin was standing by the curtain, he looked up at me with deluded malice, “Stay in your lane, Eren.”

  
“What?” I was caught off guard by his comment.

  
“You know what I’m talking about,” he said gesturing at Levi who was currently organizing the costumes.

  
I looked back over to Erwin, I was confused. I just wanted to avoid any confrontation with him. I might have been a decent fighter, but Erwin still towered over me, he was a monster of a man, and was sometimes too strong for his own good. I chose simply to nod curtly at him and continue walking until I was safely with the rest of our friends. Erwin followed closely behind me. Levi was the last out from backstage.

  
Petra gave us some last minute notes, mostly about fidgeting and subtle movements or cues. After, everyone was too excited to go home, so we perched ourselves on the edge of the stage above the orchestra pit and told jokes and stories. Making one another laugh was one of our groups favorite pass times, it seemed. I didn't mind. It was good to have friends, and even better to have friends that made it seem like the world was just a joke. They all kept me from taking myself too seriously.

  
"A skeleton walks into a bar," Hanji started, "he says, ‘Get me a beer and a mop!’"

  
It was so stupid, it was hilarious, we were all caught between laughter and disappointment, and Levi just snorted in partial amusement, he didn’t laugh much in public. He was quieter about his emotions, especially when he was out and about.   
"Oh come on Levi," Mike started, "that was funny. Laugh a little bit."

  
"No," Levi replied, "I think I'm okay, it really wasn’t that funny," he had finally gone back to using his normal voice it had taken him a while to adjust after changing his tone for so long.

  
“Are you ticklish?” I asked Levi.

  
He immediately moved away from me, “No.”

  
I started to stand up and he did the same, I took several steps forward and he took several back, “I swear to god I will dropkick you,” he started backing away from me. I broke into a run and he did the same. He was much faster than me, but Hanji was the second to her feet and bear hugged him. He struggled against her, “Fuck you!” He shouted with a smile squirming against her hold. I approached him and he stilled briefly giving me an opportunity to tickle him. He was able to contain himself briefly, but his laughter bubbled over until he was no longer able to contain it. His laugh had always entranced me, it lit up the room.

  
“I-I,” he gasped between bouts of laughter, “fucking hate you.”

  
Our friends were in awe, they stared like we were both absolutely insane.

  
I finally found it within myself to stop the unusual torture and Hanji dropped him. He couldn't even stand up, he was a giggling mess on the floor.

  
We sat around and talked for awhile, but it was getting late and Levi and I had a long drive to get home. We stepped into my car. The short conversation I had with Erwin still tuck with me. I still didn’t know what he had been talking about. Once we were safe in the confines of my car I asked him, “Erwin was sort of weird with me tonight.”

  
“What do you mean?” He said looking at me while I turned on the car, I pulled backwards out of my parking space and started driving.

  
“Well, I was sort of staring at you while you were changing,” I started.

  
Levi snorted, “I noticed, real classy, by the way.”

  
“I know,” I said, brushing off the interruption, “but, anyway, I think he saw me, or something, but he got up in my face about,” I shook my head a little bit, “‘stay in your lane,’” and it just confused me. I have no idea what he was talking about.”  
Levi sat back, “I honestly have no idea either.”

  
“And I mean it’s not like he doesn’t know we’re together, that’s been clear for awhile, you know? I just don’t know what he wants from me.”

  
“Yeah,” he started, “he’s just, pretty protective of everyone, and you’re sort of new to him. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  
“Why does he have to be like that though? It’s not like I’m going to do anything bad to you, he should know that, so why does he care?” I was getting a little heated.

  
“He and I sort of had a thing for a while,” he sounded almost ashamed, “he’s been that way ever since we broke it off.”  
I was taken aback a little, “Why?”

  
He shrugged a little, “He got over it and moved on quickly and I didn’t. I think he felt bad about, I was so much more invested than he had been, so I’ve always liked to think that he wanted to make sure that it didn’t happen again.”

  
“How did your other friends not find out about it?”

  
“This was way before we met any of them, we were in high school, we had been best friends before that and it was just sort of a natural transition. I had known what I liked for a while, and Erwin was just experimenting,” he laughed dryly, “it didn’t end well, and it had gone on for so long it just, hurt you know?”

  
“Damn,” I said, “That’s-” a pause, “I’m sorry.”

  
“Yeah, it wasn’t a great time.”

  
"Do you ever wish you could change something?"

  
"What do you mean?" he replied.

  
"Do you ever wish you could go back and change something that happened to you? Like in the past?"

  
"No," he responded almost immediately.

  
"Why?" I had a list of things I would like to change.

  
“If any thing that has happened to me, if just one of those moments changed, then I might not have ended up here. And right now," he reached across the center consol and grabbed my hand, "I wouldn't think of trading this moment for a perfect memory."

  
I nodded, “Agreed.”


	11. Confrontation

The next day was a blur, I wanted Petra to do well, and the nervousness that came with the pressure was almost unbearable. The performance was at 6:30 in the evening, we all congregated outside the auditorium at about 4:30. Petra met us at the backdoor with a reusable shopping bag, and unlocked it with a spare key she had been given. We poured backstage and began to leisurely get things in place. All the props were set and we had begun to find the motivation to get into costume.

  
"Oh, uh," Petra started, she was nervous, "my professor may, or may not have asked me if I wanted the chance for extra points on the project by inviting an audience, and," she paused, “I may or may not have said, ‘yes.’”

  
The room went quiet as we all mulled over what she had just said.

  
“What? Why would you do that? You told us it was just going to be you and your professor!” Nabana was the first to speak up.

  
"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Petra blurted out, "but he sprung it on me so suddenly and I panicked and agreed, and I know I should have told you guys sooner but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, I’m sorry,” she looked like she had just ordered a puppy to be killed, I felt bad.

  
“Well,” Levi chimed in, “there’s nothing we can do about it now so there’s no sense in worrying about it. We’ll just do what we’ve been doing and hope for the best.”

  
"Fine," Hanji said stiffly, "it's fine. Let’s just get this over with."

  
“How many people are going to be coming?” Mike asked.

  
“I’m not sure he said he would put an invitation out to anyone that wanted to come,” she trailed off, “so it could be anywhere between none and a full house.”

  
“Awesome,” I heard Olous say sarcastically.

  
“Hey,” I said looking over at him, “it’s going to be great, we’re all going to do fine.”

  
With that we all went our separate ways, “Levi,” Petra called holding out the shopping bag to him, “this is for you,” he looked inside and snorted at the contents, “Good luck with that, by the way,” Petra called after him as he left for the bathroom.   
I followed shortly after. I saw that Levi had taken a stall, and by the looks of it wasn't having a good time. I myself, having never worn a dress, decided that it would be better to just let him figure it out while I got dressed rather than try and give advice. I changed and to waited for Levi.

  
Levi finally let out an exasperated sigh, "Eren?" I was no mathematician, but he seemed approximately three-hundred percent done with his current situation.

  
"How did you know it was me?" I asked in return.

  
"Who else would stalk me in the bathroom?"

  
"Fair point, what do you need?"

  
"How much do you know about women's underwear?"

  
"You know it’s not every day that I get asked that by my boyfriend," I replied.

  
"Oh for fucks-," he cut himself off, "just come help me."

  
I laughed and pushed in on the stall door as he unlocked it. I relocked it before turning to look at him. The dress was half pulled of of him, the top half, and to make matters even more awkward, he was wearing a front clasping bra, that apparently, he couldn't figure out. I opened my mouth but was interrupted, “Don’t say a word, just tell me how the fuck,” he said trying to attach the two sides together, “do you do this?”

  
"Why would you assume I know how to do anything?"

  
He fixed me with a sassy glare and said, "You have slept with way too many girls to be completely clueless."

  
I laughed and said, "Well that's true."

  
I attached the two sides together somewhat easily, and stepped backwards I noticed that it was far too big on him to look like anything realistic, "I hope you know this is the most awkward thing I have ever done."

  
"Tell me about it," Levi said reaching into the bag again.

  
"What else did she give you?," I asked, kind of afraid of what he would produce form the bag next.

  
He pulled out two rubbery looking half circles, "Ha," he spat before tucking them into place in the bra, almost immediately pulling them back out, “Fuck,” he started laughing, “they’re so cold, oh my god!”

  
I sighed and ran my hand across my face, “I don’t have time for your shit right now.”

  
“You don’t have to deal with my shit right now,” he said pointing at the door, “you can leave.”

  
I looked at him standing there half naked holding what could have passed as translucent chicken cutlets, “I was lying, this is too funny for me to miss.”

  
“Fuck off,” he said laughing, he tucked the cutlets back where they belonged, and pulled the top of the dress up to cover himself. I silently mourned the view of his upper body, "Can you zip me?" He turned around. I complied and followed the action up by wrapping my arms around his waist. I was able to look over his shoulder, down at his now quite feminine figure, he looked down as well and laughed a bit, "This is the weirdest shit I have ever done for Petra."

  
"You look hot," I said reaching up and groping him.

  
"Did I say you could touch my titties?" He replied swatting my hands away.

  
I backed off him and allowed Levi to put on the rest of his costume, "I won't do it again, I swear."

  
"Good," Levi replied smirking at me before stalking out of the stall in his heels.

  
There was a man standing just a little outside the bathroom door. I couldn’t have missed the way he glared he fixed us with if I had tried. His look was so pointed and lasted much longer than an annoyed glance should have lasted.

  
"Do you have a problem?" Levi asked, he used the same tone he’d used when he first met me. A chill ran down my spine, I really didn’t want to have a problem with anyone right now.

  
The man didn't respond, he looked us both up and down before he turned and walked away.

  
"Fucker," Levi mumble once he was out of earshot.

  
We entered the backstage area, and found that almost everyone was ready, despite not going on for almost another hour.

  
"Over here, short stuff," Hanji called from across the room. She, Petra, and Nabana were seated at a large desk they had claimed for makeup, “you too, Eren.”

  
"You've gotta be shitting me," Levi said.

  
"It isn't very lady like to swear," Oluo said from the corner.

  
Levi stumbled and pretended to drop something, "Oh no," he said deadpan, "my fucks."

  
He plopped himself down in a chair by Petra, I sat down in another chair next to Hanji and she began to cake my face with various powders and liquids. It took about a half hour before the look Hanji had decided to give me was finished. It took Petra twice as long with Levi, and once she had finished that, the look was completed with a long wavy black wig.

  
Petra handed him a mirror, "What do you think?"

  
He looked at himself for a couple seconds, "Damn," was all he ended up saying.

  
He stood up and turned to look at me. I was speechless. His face had completely changed. They had somehow made his face appear fuller, and with the hint of pink on the apples of his cheeks, he looked almost like a doll. His skin was flawless, and he had ruby red lips and a pair of false eyelashes to top it all off.

  
"Do you like it?" He asked turning once to give me a view of everything.

  
"Yeah," I said. He looked so changed, it was an odd but exhilarating differentiation from his normal look.

  
“Five minutes to curtain up,” Petra called as she started for the exit, “you’ll all do great, break a leg.”

  
“How many people are out there?” Nabana asked fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

  
I peeked around the corner, there were probably only three hundred seats in the auditorium, and easily a third of them were filled. My stomach dropped. I had never done anything like this before, I had never put myself out there like this before.   
“Probably a hundred at least,” I relayed, pulling my head inside the curtain again.

  
“Oh god,” she whispered as she started to pace back and fourth.

  
I was nervous, noticeable apparently; Levi walked over to me and placed a hand on my lower back, and rested the other on my elbow, "You'll do great, don't worry about it," he was using his character voice. I could have easily forgotten that he wasn’t a female.

  
"Thanks," I said weakly, "you too."

  
I could feel him smile as he kissed the back of my neck. We were split up and put on opposite sides of the stage to prepare for our entrances.

  
Everything went perfectly. No one stumbled over anything, it was smooth sailing all through act one and most of act two. It was obvious that Levi was a natural performer he was cool and level headed as always throughout the entire thing, never missing a beat. He kept the audience enthralled with every step. The last scene was where things started to fall apart. We were supposed to be up on the roof of a factory building (long story) when Levi's character would confess her love for my character and convince him to not to kill himself, and for the first part everything went very well. There were audible sniffled from the audience as we both delivered our lines with candor. Shit hit the fan after the last line of Levi’s monologue where he was supposed to kiss me and pull me away from the edge of the stage, I was placed more towards the edge this time around however and when he when he went in for the kiss perhaps a little too vigorously I lost my balance.

  
One counterstep to compensate for the push I had received later, and I was falling off the stage entirely. I fell backwards, or stepped more like, into the orchestra pit ten feet down. I felt a pop followed by a stabbing sensation in my leg. I was able, by some miracle to hold in the urge to scream, I simply laid there on the floor looking up a genuinely shell-shocked Levi.   
Levi immediately picked up that he would need to improvise, he had followed me as I fell and tried to catch me. I was almost glad that he had failed I might have otherwise dragged him down with me. He had stopped at the edge of the stage though and was reaching down with one arm, and holding on with the other. He let out two dramatically loud breaths before starting to cry. What a night to behold, Levi had kissed me and had fake cried in public. I would have laughed normally, but I was afraid that if I let out any noise at all it might turn into a cry of pain. The curtains immediately began to close, and over the applause, I could hear Levi's footsteps as he made a mad dash for the stairs that led from backstage to the orchestra pit. He never once ditched the heels, which for me at least, might have been the greatest surprise of the night.

  
I was only able to see his outline make its way down the stairs in the darkness as he ran over to me. He immediately grabbed my head off the floor and cradled it gently.

  
"Are you okay?" he asked breathlessly.

  
"Yeah, not really," I groaned. I hoped that we couldn’t be heard by the audience.

  
"Did you hit your head at all?" He asked.

  
"I don’t think so, it’s just my leg."

  
He then proceeded to pick me up as best he could and put most of my weight on his shoulders. I was able to use the one leg that wasn't screaming in pain to help us both walk up the stairs. The rest of the cast had taken their bows and were out meeting the people who had been in the audience. The show must go on, must have been what they were going for.

  
Levi swore violently, before sitting me down in the nearest chair. He then pulled up a second chair and gently lifted my leg up onto it. He pulled up my pants’ leg as far as it would go, and I finally got a good look at it, everything was normal, except for the huge bend in the middle of my shin, "You said didn't hit your head, right?" he asked for the second time.

  
"No," I started putting a hand to my head, "I don't think so."

  
"Good," he replied before getting up and grabbing the first aid kit that was backstage.

  
Levi rummaged through the case, occasionally he pulled things out and tucked them under his arm. When he had everything he needed the closed the lid, and replaced the case before walking over to me.

  
"Here," he said handing me three pills.

  
"What are these?" I trusted him, but I still felt compelled to ask.

  
“Painkillers,” he replied, as he sat down on the floor next to me. I immediately swallowed them.

  
"Will I need to go to the hospital?" I asked. I hated hospitals and I would tough it out if there was even a chance of getting out of a trip to the doctor.

  
"Probably," Levi replied, "but it isn't worth it to fight the crowds to get out of here. Everyone will be trying to leave at once and there’s no point in bothering with it while you’re like this. It'll be less painful if we just wait."

  
"And what's all that for?" I asked again pointing to the stuff he had pulled out of the first aid kit.

  
"It's best to try and reset the bone as quickly as possible. It hurts more the longer you wait"

  
“Shouldn’t you wait for the doctors to do that,” I asked more nervous now.

  
“It’s not that hard, we learned how to do it in and EMT class I took,” he looked like he just wanted to help.

  
“Wait you took an EMT class?” I didn’t understand how I didn’t know this already.

  
“Yeah, I took the class in high school and worked at the station for about two years afterward. I got to work on an ambulance crew and go out and help people when they called in for things like this,” he gestured towards me, “it was fun, paid pretty well too.”

  
“Why did you not tell me this before?” I was in disbelief.

  
“I don’t know it didn’t seem important,” Levi shrugged it off and we chose to listen to the sounds of stragglers leaving the theatre. We didn’t speak for a while. Soon the medicine kicked in, and the pain became more of a dull buzzing in my leg.  
"Does it still hurt?" Levi asked after a while, tracing his fingers up and down my shin.

  
"No, not really," I replied.

  
"Alright then," he said scooting closer to me. He felt the break more forcefully, and the pain returned, not with full force but it was still enough to be uncomfortable. He suddenly moved his hand to the lower section of my quad right above my knee, “relax everything up here, okay?” His hand trailed down to my calf, “Here too, if you tighten up then you're working against me and it’s harder for both of us,” I nodded and tried to relax my entire leg as much as I could, "Don't move, and on three okay?" He firmly grabbed either side of the break in my leg firmly as he spoke.

  
"Alright," I said gritting my teeth and bracing myself against the chair.

  
Petra, as well as our other friends had impeccable timing. The door flung open and we were barraged with, "What happened?" From nearly everyone.

  
"Perfect," Levi said seeing everyone else behind Petra, "Erwin, could I have a hand here?"

  
"Oh my god!" Petra gasped seeing the state of my leg.

  
Erwin pushed his way over to us, "What do you need me to do?" he asked.

  
"Just hold down his hip and knee, make sure they don't move," Erwin was immediately in place holding my leg down stiffly.  
"What the hell are you doing?" came Oulo’s voice, "Call an ambulance or something! Don't do it yourself!"

  
"You think we can afford a trip to the E.R.?" Levi shot back, "And plus I've done this plenty of times before."

  
"When?" Oluo asked.

  
Levi ignored the question, and instead turned to me, "Eren, do you trust me?"

  
"Of course," I replied.

  
"See? I have his consent," Levi said before turning to Erwin and saying, "Three!"

  
He pushed and pulled the broken portion of my leg sharply once and it snapped back into place. Getting it back hurt more than breaking it, even with the pain meds, "Fuck!” I said as I felt it settle back to where it was supposed to be. I laughed and groaned at the same time and tried to roll away from the vice grip that Levi and Erwin had on my leg.

  
“Don’t move,” Erwin warned.

  
“Can you wrap it for me?” Levi asked turning to Erwin, “I’m going to go find some ice.”

  
Erwin turned his attention to me as Levi stalked out of the room in search of ice. The room was speechless, but the two of them knew exactly what to do. As he walked out he passed Petra's professor, who had apparently been there the entire time, "You're not a woman," he said as Levi opened the door.

  
"Good job," he said deadpan, “you figured it out,” before walking out of the room.

  
"And that wasn't part of the script," he said looking at me and then to Petra.

  
"Not really, no," she said looking at me.

  
He nodded a very obvious smile creeping onto his face, "You all did very well covering for it.”

  
"I’m sorry, but can we talk out there?" Petra asked, pointing to the door that separated backstage from a hallway.

  
"Of course," he replied following Petra.

  
My leg had swollen and the bruising was getting worse by the minute. I could feel my pulse in the bone of my leg, it was persistent but the pain ebbed with every second that passed. Levi finally returned with a large bag of ice.

  
"Here," he said putting it gingerly on the place of the break. It sent a shock through me, "it’ll help keep the swelling down. Where are your car keys?"

  
"Over there," I said pointing to my small pile of clothes.

  
Levi walked over and rummaged through the pockets of my clothes, "These?" He said lifting my keys up.

  
"Yeah," I mumbled.

  
"I'll drive you to the hospital."

  
"Okay," I replied, too tired to care that he was driving.

  
Erwin helped me up, and out to my car, where I was put in the backseat sideways so I could keep my leg elevated.   
"Wait!" I said as Levi inserted the key in the ignition, "I thought you couldn't drive."

  
"I said I don't drive," he said absent mindedly, he turned around to back up the car, "I didn't say that I couldn't."

  
Levi was a terrifying driver, he was not very good at controlling his speed, and didn't really use the turn signals, or brakes, but he had total control over the car the entire time. I chalked it up to lack of practice, and didn’t comment. He hadn’t driven at all in the time that I’d know him. We were both still in costume, so I chose to wonder how he was driving in those heels rather than the fact that his driving was stressing me out. It took twenty-five minutes to get to the nearest hospital. Once we were stopped he helped me out of the car, the same way he helped me up the stairs, and we were able to walk un to the front doors of the building.

  
The lady at the front desk paid us almost no mind as she slid papers toward us, “You can fill this out while you wait for the doctor to come get you, have a nice day,” monotonous was an understatement to how little emotion this woman’s voice carried.

  
"Thanks," Levi said to the lady before sitting me down in one of the waiting room chairs.

  
He plopped down next to me before clicking the pen and starting, "Alright," he said, "name: Eren," he paused and looked at me.

  
"Jäger," I said.

  
“With a ‘Y’ or,” he trailed off,” looking at me.

  
“Just let me-” I said reaching for it.

  
“No,” he said holding it further away from me, “I’m taking care of you like a good boyfriend. Now, tell me how to spell your last name.”

  
“J-Ä-G-E-R,” I replied slowly rolling my eyes and looking over at his work, “you forgot the umlaut over the A.”

  
“The what?” He asked, looking over at me like I was insane.

  
“The umlaut,” I said looking at him, “the little accent mark with the two dots above the letter. There’s one above the A in my last name.”

  
"Ok," he said fixing it and moving on, "Birthday: November 3rd. Age: 20."

  
He looked at me, "Height?"

  
"5'11"," I said.

  
"Damn," he replied, "Weight?"

  
"190," I replied.

  
He wrote it in the box, "Alright," he said in a mock serious tone, "now we have a questionnaire."

  
I had to laugh.

  
"Don't laugh," he said in the same tone, that said he was telling a joke, "questionnaires are a serious matter. Do you think the world could function without the answers to these important queries?"

  
"Of course not," I said still laughing slightly, "what's the first question."

  
"Have you ever had any heart, lung, liver, kidney, or stomach problems?"

  
"No."

  
"Are you currently on any medication?"

  
"Nope."

  
"Do you have a history of addiction?"

  
I paused it was still a rather sore nerve, "Yeah."

  
Levi was kind enough to move on right away, "Have you had any serious injuries/ surgeries in the past 6 months?"

  
"Nope."

 

"What's your favorite sex position?" Levi asked nonchalantly.

 

"What?" I laughed as I looked over at him.

 

"It's a very important medical question, Eren." 

 

"Clearly," I replied. Levi didn't write anything down or ask me anymore questions. He just stared up at me with those eyes that I was so weak for, "Are you really going to make me answer that?"

 

"Yes," he said turning his attention back to the paperwork, "like I said, it's a very important medical question."

 

"Oh my god," I said with a chuckle leaning my head back, "any, as long as it's with you? Is that an acceptable answer?"

 

Levi hummed and smiled for a second, "No, I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific than that."

 

"You're making me do this in the middle of a hospital waiting room," I mumbled under my breath, "Okay, um, _if_ I had to chose just one," I paused. I had never actually put the thought in to pick a favorite, "it would have to be," I trailed off, "you being on top."

 

"So cowboy, or girl, or whatever?" He said locking eyes with me again.

 

"Yeah," I replied, "that would have to be it."

  
"Noted," he said looking back down at the papers, "Are you pregnant or have you given birth within the past 6 months?"

  
"Could you not tell?" I replied rubbing my stomach.

  
"I would be concerned if you were,” he said looking over at me with slight disgust.

  
“What, why?” I thought it had been a joke.

  
A small smile crept onto his face and he let out a single syllable laugh, “Because I know I wouldn’t be the father,” he snorted and started laughing.

  
I couldn’t help but laugh along, "True enough," I sighed, "no, I don't think I have been pregnant or given birth within the past 6 months."

  
"You don't sound so sure," he said biting the end of the pen as he tried to repress his laughter.

  
"Trust me," I said raising my eyebrows at him, "I'm sure."

  
"Okay. Are you currently in a relationship?"

  
"Yes."

  
For the last question he turned and looked directly at me, in his normal emotionless voice be asked, "Are you currently sexually active?"

  
“I think I have been,” I said looking over at him.

  
“You don’t sound so sure about that one either,” he said looking down at the paper then back up at me, “I’m offended.”

  
"I would like to correct my earlier statement," I said, "this is the most awkward thing I've ever done."

  
"Amen to that," Levi said looking at the paper "I'll just check ‘yes’ despite your uncertain answer."

  
"Have you finished the paperwork yet?" The nurse asked in an irritated tone.

  
"Yeah," Levi said standing up and bringing it to her, before retiring to sit with me.

  
He strutted back to where I was seated. He walked close to me before turning around and sitting back down, making sure to give me a nice view of his ass in the little shorts he had hidden beneath the dress before he seated himself.

  
"You're such a tease," I said exasperated.

  
"I know," he said back, "that's why you love me."

  
A doctor walked into the room after a few more minutes of heated conversation between the two of us.

  
"Mr," the doctor paused and looked at the papers on his clipboard, "Jäger?"

  
I slowly rose with Levi's assistance. The doctor immediately called for a wheelchair to be brought up, seeing the condition of my leg. Soon one was brought over and Levi helped me into it.

  
The doctor started to walk away, and a nurse wheeled me directly behind him.

  
Levi started to follow, but the doctor stopped him, "Miss, I'll need you to wait out here," I noticed the doctor's eyes lingered a little longer than they should have on Levi's fake boobs. They did look really realistic. Levi noticed it too, and immediately pursed his lips and turned on his heel. He didn't look happy about being separated from me, or being stared at.

  
X-rays were taken, and the doctor commended Levi’s skill and quick thinking, saying that the bone had looked like it had been set professionally, but it would still require a minor surgery to repair some of the bone that had shattered off. I agreed to the surgery and was almost immediately prepped and put under.

  
I don't really remember that much from the rest of the hospital visit, I didn’t fully wake up for about two hours after the surgery, but my body was apparently up almost immediately after being taken off the anesthetic. I had apparently taken this time to flirt with just about everyone that walked in the room, including Levi who I hadn’t recognized, as well as spout off a number of other embarrassing things. The next thing I remember clearly was Levi sitting in the chair next to my hospital bed.  
"Surgery, after falling off the stage. That takes some skill," he said cokcing his head at me once he realized I was fully awake.

  
"Yeah," I laughed.

  
"We need to come up with a better story."

  
"To tell who, exactly?" I asked him.

  
"Good point," he replied smirking at me.

  
"The doctor was totally checking you out," I said, to be honest, it had made me jealous.

  
"Yeah," he said, voice laced with disgust, "Petra really did a good job, but you're the only one for me."

  
I smiled and replied, "Same to you, Vi."

  
The doctor barged into the room, "Miss, may I speak to you for a moment?"

  
"Yes," Levi said not bothering to fake his voice.

  
"Um, in private?" she asked looking briefly at me.

  
Levi narrowed his eyes aggressively and spoke, "No, whatever you have to say, you can say to him too."

  
"It was just about the price of the operation," she said trying to make it sound like she wasn't trying to get a minute alone with Levi, "you didn’t declare that you had insurance on any of the documents. The price we gave you was high I know that, but it can be reduced, if you have insurance."

  
"Do you have insurance?" Levi asked looking at me.

  
"No," I replied.

  
"Well, we’re boned, thank you though."

  
The doctor spoke again, "You can check out anytime you want, it’ll be more expensive the longer you stay," she spoke uneasily.

  
"Great," Levi said standing up, “do you think you’re good to go?”

  
“Yeah,” I replied making an attempt to stand up.

  
“We’ll help you get dressed,” to doctor said to me, “you can meet him in the waiting room.”

  
Levi let out a small hum of disapproval before making his way to the door. The doctor didn't even try to discretely check him out this time. I was seething at the thought. I knew nothing would ever happen between them, but I wanted to be the only one to look at him that way, and seeing anyone else take notice of his beauty, especially when it was so artificial, made me angry. I had to admit though, Levi was a hot chick, anyone would want him.

  
The doctor called in a few nurses to come help me back into my clothes, we had only thought to bring what was already on us, so I was put back in my costume. The doctor helped escort me to the waiting room. I wasn't helped back into the wheelchair, they instead gave me a pair of crutches, I had never had to use crutches before, it felt like trying to walk on stilts.  
It took me a while to make my way out to the front desk, I was finally able to reach the front desk and the woman that had been escorting me placed herself a little too closely to Levi who was leaning on the receptionist desk, finalizing my checkout. I was so close to shouting at her. I contained myself and instead, and stood equally as close to Levi on the opposite side. With the arm I could afford to not hold the crutches with, I grabbed him by the waist, and pulled him a little closer to me. He bumped his hips against mine. We had walked in on the part of the two’s conversation where Levi was explaining what had happened, and thus exposed himself as being in drag right now.

  
Eventually there was an awkward silence between everyone while the woman behind the desk got some final papers we would need to sign.

  
"So," the doctor started, "you're in a play?"

  
“Yes,” Levi replied, “we were.”

  
“And you’re not a woman?” She said looking him up and down one more time.

  
"Yeah," Levi said looking down at myself, "it's a long story."

  
"Ah," she said before leaving both of us alone.

  
Levi waited until the doctor was out of earshot, "Shallow asshole," he mumbled.

  
"Yeah," I replied.

  
“I’ll have to tell Erwin and Mike, ‘I told you so,’ next time I see them,” he snickered to himself.

  
“You’ll have to follow it up with, ‘I was totally getting hit on by a doctor,’” I replied.

  
The receptionist came back with papers, I had to sign a lot of them, it got to the point where I was just fed up and started signing things regardless of what I was agreeing to by doing so.

  
With all the paperwork was complete, Levi and I started to walk out to the car. I only slipped accidentally once, but I learned that when I slipped, Levi would catch me, by putting one hand on my stomach and the other on my lower back. I "slipped" four times after that. I was able to sit in the front seat this time, and Levi was a much more steady driver than when he had driven me here. He had probably been more worried about me than he was letting on. He drove us back to the theatre, where again I had "trouble" crossing the parking lot.

  
Once inside, and backstage we were jumped by Hanji.

  
"Errrrrrrrren!" she shouted running up to tackle me, but stopping when she saw the state we were both in. She was obviously drunk.

  
"Heyyyyyy!" Petra shouted at us. Who was also obviously drunk.

  
Levi sighed, "What did you guys do?"

  
"We knew you'd come back here," Nabana started, slurring her words, "so we figured we could get something to help us out with the wait," she held up a large dark bottle for us to inspect.

  
Levi pulled of his wig and wig cap, placing them on the rack where we kept our costumes. He combed his fingers through his hair and sighed with relief. His hair had been crumpled and flattened by the wig cap. Once he was free of his false hair he walked over to my pile of clothes; he picked them up, and handed them to me, before realizing that my hands were full, to which he tucked them under my arm before grabbing his own clothing and helping me to the restroom.

  
Hanji noticed us suddenly, "I can help Eren get changed," she offered.

  
“I think I’ve got it, thank you though,” I was glad Levi had declined her invitation, I didn’t want her anywhere near me while she was like this.

  
Levi didn't wait until I we had left the room to start pulling at the dress, trying to get it off.

  
"Keep your pants on around us dude," Erwin called in a joking manner.

  
"I have worn a fucking dress for the past 8 fucking hours," he said over his shoulder with no humor, "so fuck you."

  
"Jesus," Erwin mumbled, "moody much."

  
The door closed after that last comment.

  
We hurried to the bathroom, and Levi made sure to help me out and into my clothes before helping me wipe off the remnants of makeup that still clung to my face.

  
“I can help you back,” he said already pulling the top of the dress off, “let me just change first.”

  
“Thank you,” I said watching as he stripped himself of his clothing again.

  
“Don’t mention it,” he said busying himself with other things.

  
I made my way out of the bathroom to give him some alone time. I was so exhausted. I sunk down to a sit against the wall. It was so hard to keep my eyes open, I didn’t fight it when I nodded off. Levi roused me when he walked out from the bathroom, “Eren?” I opened my eyes to find him crouching next to me. His face was splotchy from washing it. Once he saw that I was fully awake he stood up and helped me to my feet, “Let’s get you home.”

  
We walked backstage and the whole gang was still there waiting for us to return no one was any more sober, and it was obvious Levi didn’t have the patience to drive them all home. He sighed and walked up to where we both had been changing, he gathered up all of our things and we both started for the door no one seemed to take not of us until that moment.

  
“Hey,” Oulo called from across the room, “are you just going to leave us here?”

  
“That was the plan,” Levi started not stalling for a second.

  
“Really?” Oulo said getting up, “You’re just going to leave us all here, you don’t even care.”

  
Levi exhaled sharply, “I have had a long day I wouldn’t test me if I were you,” he had turned to face Oulo.

  
“No,” he said, “I’m not letting you do this, we all would do anything for you, and you’re going to leave us high and dry. You’re a shitty friend Levi.”

  
"Why don't you get off my fucking back for two second for once?" Levi snapped back at him.

  
"I’m not the one who isn’t willing to help the people I say I care about," Oluo said aggressively.

  
“I’m not the one who chose to get drunk in the backstage of a fucking theatre,” he started, “I’m not the one who sat on his ass while other people were dealing with shit. You got yourself here, you figure it the fuck out.”

  
“So you don’t give a shit about us,” Oulo spat.

  
Levi sighed and ran his hands through his hair, no one else had spoken, “Fine,” he said looking at him, “fucking fine! Get in the goddam car before I leave.”

  
Our friends piled into the car, I waited in the theatre, after they were successfully dropped at their various places of residence, Levi spun back around to the back entrance, and helped me into the car. With how fast the trip took him, it wouldn’t have surprised me if had just made them jump out of the car while he slowed down.

  
“You okay?” I asked when we were seated comfortably in the car.

  
“Not especially but it’s fine,” he replied.

  
“Do you want to talk about it?”

  
He sighed before pulling out of the parking lot. The earliest rays of sun were starting to break over the horizon. He didn’t say anything for a while, we just watched the sunrise in silence.

  
“It’s beautiful,” he said eventually gesturing towards the sunrise.

  
“Tell me what happened,” I pushed again, “did Oulo give you shit because he honestly has no right to do that. You were right-”

  
“Please don’t side with me on this,” Levi cut me off.

  
"Why not? You made a fair point he was being unreasonable,” I said shocked that he didn’t want to be right.

  
“It’s just that Oulo always pulls that shit on me,” he started, I knew I had just gotten him going, he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, “that whole, ‘you’re being a shitty friend by not doing everything we need all the time,’ and it just pisses me off. He wants to blame me for being a bad person for not doing whatever he wants and I know he means well, but it just pisses me off because I can’t do everything. I can’t do a lot of the things that he expects me to do, and I end up hurting people more by saying I can do something than just admitting that I can’t,” he inhaled, “He expects everyone to be perfect, and he makes a big deal of pointing out people’s flaws, and he can’t respect boundaries. He makes you feel like a piece of shit for having flaws and sometimes,” he gripped the steering wheel tighter, “I just can’t deal with it.”

  
I didn’t know what to say. Levi was the first to break the silence again, "Petra and Oluo hate me now."

  
"Did you apologize?" I asked.

  
"Yes," he said not losing his focus on the road, “the thing that pissed me off most was the fact that Petra just agreed with him. She didn’t give me any reasons, she just said that he might be right,” he didn't elaborate anymore, but after a few seconds he loosened his grip on the steering wheel ad sat back a little. There wasn’t much talk from that point on. I turned on the radio and just sat and listened. It had been an emotionally and physically exhausting day. I felt like I could sleep for years. When my apartment complex came into view I was practically weeping with joy.

  
Once there Levi stopped the car and helped me out of my seat. He walked me up to my apartment and unlocked the door for me. I stepped inside, but Levi didn't follow. He stood in the doorway and held my keys out to me.

  
"Goodnight," he said stiffly, "I'll come check up on you tomorrow. Keep your leg up and don’t put any stress on it."

  
It hurt me to watch him walk away from my door. That was the first time we hadn't stayed in the same place in days. I almost immediately tried to call him, but he didn't pick up the phone. I suddenly remembered Hanji had given me her number a few weeks ago so we could coordinate show things. I called her next. One ring. No answer. Two rings. No answer. She picked up on the third ring, "Who is this?" she said in her usual perky voice.

  
"Eren," I replied hoping she remembered giving me her number.

  
"Oh," she said her tone dropping, "give me a sec."

  
I heard her talk to someone on the other side of the phone, but what she was exactly saying was muffled. After a very short conversation, it sounded like she was walking.

  
"Okay," she said, now she was outside. I could hear the birds in the background, and the slight rustling of the breeze, "what do you need?"

  
"I just wanted to know what Levi said to you guys," I paused for a moment, and she didn't respond, "he went on about a couple other things, then said that Petra and Oluo hated him. I was just wondering what happened."

  
Hanji sighed and continued in an uncharacteristically low voice, "He apologized, then Oulo just guilt tripped him the entire ride and Petra just kind of agreed with him," I could tell she was irritated, because she didn't stop talking, "And, yeah, him, Oluo and Petra aren't on the best of terms, mostly because that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Levi and Oluo always bicker about things like that, and I think that everyone is just done with it. And I'm really sorry that you got mixed up in all of this, but for right now, I would just stay away from all of them. At least until they figure this all out "

  
"Oh," I said the gravity of everything that just happened was beginning to set in, "but they were being totally unreasonable right?"

  
"Of course, everyone else knows it too, but there’s no point in trying to talk to any of them when they are like this," Hanji said.

  
“Okay, thank you,” I said, “goodnight, or morning I guess.”

  
She laughed a little, “Yeah, you too.”

  
Hanji hung up after that. I tried to call Levi again, and he still didn't pick up.

  
I decided it was just better to sleep on everything than try to figure it all out now. That’s what I did, I followed Levi’s advice and fell asleep as the sun started to rise higher into the sky.

 


	12. Impressions

I woke up at about three in the afternoon and immediately had three thoughts. The first was Levi, the second was that I was more hungry than I had been in a long time, and the third was how badly I had to piss. I was practically sweating I had to go so bad. I managed to roll out of bed and make my way into the bathroom. I had been able to make my way into the bathroom with minimal pain but it wasn't until I got to actually doing the deed that I realized how difficult it was to pee while standing on one leg. Physics aside, any accuracy I had wen out the window (almost literally), and I spent about twice as much time cleaning up after myself than I had actually relieving myself. With one of my three thoughts crossed out I made my way slowly into the kitchen, I couldn't be bothered to make anything substantial at the moment, so I settled for cereal. I realized that my phone was halfway across the room only after I had sat down to eat. It buzzed on my table, and I all but crawled over to it.

  
I had received a message from Levi:

  
_Just woke up, on my way over. Need me to pick you up anything?_

  
I typed out my response, after everything that had happened last night I needed a little humor in my day:

  
_See you soon, that sexy ass is all I need_.

  
I could already hear him scoffing at my reply, but no other messages came. An hour later there came a knock at my door. I managed somehow to get over to the door and open it. Levi stood in my doorway, grocery bags and backpack in hand.

  
“You lied to me,” he said, “I know you haven’t gone to the store in weeks.”

  
“Oh, how you see right through me,” I said dramatically closing the door behind Levi. He began unpacking the bags, organizing the contents into their places around the apartment. I tried to help him, but he quickly waved me off and told me to go sit down. I complied, happily, and watched him from the couch, “Thank you," I crooned from my resting spot.

  
“No problem,” he said coming to sit next to me.

  
“No, really thank you for everything,” I said adjusting myself so I could face him, “it really means a lot to me that you’re willing to do all this for me.”

  
He smiled and moved closer to kiss me gently, “You’re welcome, I would do anything for you.”

  
I leaned forward and kissed him again, “I love you.”

  
“I love you too,” he replied, leaning in again to capture my mouth with his. He started to move with more intention, and I couldn't help but fall into familiar patterns. I stretched out more fully, and forced Levi to hold himself above me. I liked seeing him leaning over me, I loved reaching up to meet him halfway as he pulled at my lips with his own. What I wouldn't do for a lifetime of this. I adjusted myself slightly and my leg fell off the couch, hitting the ground with a hard smack as plastic met wood.

  
"Fuck!" I said immediately pulling it back up. I could easily say it felt like i had just broken my leg all over again.   
"Shit," Levi said pulling up off me and helping me get readjusted, "I'm sorry."

  
He kept apologizing, and I kept telling him it was okay. I wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, and return to our previous occupation, but Levi was a good care taker, no matter how much he seemed to hate being called that.

  
"I think the boning is going to have to wait just a little while longer. I don't want you to get hurt. Trust me if we had to go to the emergency room again for that it would be much more embarrassing," he said laughing at me after my most recent series of pleas for him to help me get my rocks off.

  
"Or we just need a better place to fuck," I said dropping my hand onto his head. I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled on it lightly, he loved it when I played with his hair. 

  
"I don't think I can carry you all the way to your bedroom," he snapped back, perfectly content with teasing me.

  
"You carried me all the way through a theatre, and a parking lot, and a hospital, if I'm not mistaken."

  
He rolled his eyes and smiled at me, "First of all I wasn't carrying you, and second I only did it because I knew you needed me to."

  
"So you'll only help me if I need it, is that it?"

  
"I do believe that's what I said, Eren."

  
I paused, "So if I needed your help now to-"

  
Levi cut me off with a laugh. He turned around to face me and kneeled so he could easily place his face over mine. I still had my hand firmly in his hair, it twisted around my fingers as he adjusted himself, "You're such a horny little shit, you know that right?"

  
"Yes," I scoffed, it was my turn to roll my eyes at him.

  
"Good," he said leaning down to kiss me before pulling me up by my hands. Once I was only my feet he wrapped my arm around his shoulders, and helped me hobble over to my bedroom.

  
He pushed me down onto the mattress beneath him and immediately pounced on me. I pushed myself up onto my elbows and squirmed backwards until I was fully on the bed, Levi never once left me, his hands and mouth followed me with every move I made. Maybe he was trying to prove his point, or I was subconsciously trying to help him prove his point, but he came onto me passionately, and in that moment I couldn't think about him being beautiful or sexy, my mind leapfrogged over all of that and landed on me being tired. The more he moved the more I realized it. He pulled back.

  
"Do you still think we shouldn't wait?" He asked cocking an eyebrow at me.

  
I followed him up at first but then collapsed back on the bed, "How much of a dick move would it be if I were to tell you that I think I'm too tired to even function right now?"

  
Levi switched his position from on top of me to laying beside me, "I'd say that'd be a pretty big dick move," he said sighing and laying back as well, "but I'd understand where you're coming from. I'm in the same boat."

  
I giggled at his phrasing, it was my turn to apologize, "I'm sorry."

  
"Don't be, I would have said it if you hadn't," he said adjusting himself to curl around me. I pulled one of his legs over my torso, and he flipped onto his stomach, resting his chest against mine.

  
I thought over the events of the past 48 hours and realized that I had every right to be tired, so with Levi breathing softly against me, I allowed myself to drift off.

 


	13. Interpretation

The weeks to come were peaceful, passing in simplistic bliss. I was able to heal fairly quickly, the surgery had helped me get up and on my feet faster than seemed humanly possible. A metal plate had been screwed into the bone, and was keeping the break together. I was out of a cast and on my feet after about only six weeks of rest. I had always been blessed with quick recovery. I hadn't minded being injured so much, being doted on was something that I could enjoy in small doses, and even if some of the time all Levi was giving me was sympathy sex I still enjoyed myself.

  
Levi had been getting restless for the past few weeks, he hadn’t talked to Petra or Oulo very consistently, things were getting better between all of them, but there was still a tenseness about every interaction they had that was impossible to miss. I could tell he was getting tired of the whole situation. He was constantly looking for something new. He said it kept him busy, and I couldn't deny that discovery of any kind was a distraction. I received a message one morning while I was still laying in bed. Levi had chosen to spend the last few nights at his place, I had joined him for a few, but eventually retired back to my home. It took me a few moments to wake up enough to register what the buzzing on the nightstand signified:

  
_I'll be over in 5. Stay put._

  
I smiled at the message I still got butterflies when he said he was coming over, or when he asked me out for coffee. I was completely weak when it came to him. Love was a strange thing. It was so much, yet nothing at the same time. It constantly contradicted itself, it constantly refused to be ignored. It was imperfect, but that was almost the joy of love. It wasn't always beautiful, but it commanded your attention none the less. A second message popped up only a few seconds later:

  
_Pack a bag too._

  
I laughed and rolled back over and nuzzled my face against the blankets. He had been exactly right on time, in about 5 minutes he knocked on my door, I had given him a spare key since he was here so often. He still knocked everytime. I heard the bolt click backwards and Levi announced his arrival, “I’m in here,” I called from my bed in response. It was too early to function.

  
"Where's your bag?" he asked as he walked into my bedroom and acknowledged my lack of luggage. He, however, did not mention anything about my lack of clothing. It was almost impossible to sleep with any sort of clothes on in the late summer heat. Even after the sun went down it was almost unbearable. 

  
"I haven’t packed one yet," I said enticing him to join me beneath the sheets, “and I won’t until you explain what’s going on.”  
He acknowledged my tease and kicked off his shoes before he started to crawl up the bed towards me.

  
“What do you want to know?” He asked when his face was close enough that I could only think of one thing.

  
“Are you taking me on a trip?” I asked leaning forward to kiss him.

  
He allowed me to brush his lips with mine before he pulled back, “Yes, a road trip,” he gave into the temptation after and pressed his lips to mine feverishly. I pressed myself closer to him, and the sound he let out proved he knew exactly what part of me was up and ready to go. I took advantage of the way his lips parted and slipped my tongue into his mouth, he sighed relief into mine.

  
His lips left mine as he started to move down my neck and chest, covering me in open mouthed kisses, “Where would we be going?” I was able to choke out.

  
"Wherever we end up. I just need to get away from here for a while," taking a break only to speak before returning to his previous occupation.

  
I don't know why, but getting lost with the person I loved seemed like the most romantic thing in the world, I agreed to the road trip.

  
"How long will we be gone?"

  
"As long as we want," he replied wistfully pulling away from where he had settled on my hip to look at me.

  
“I can’t wait,” I said. I saw a smile creep across his face before he made his unholy descent under the sheets to deal with my libido. I was glad the heat of the night made me discard any clothing I had been wearing before. It gave Levi easy access to everything. I could feel his warm breath wash over me before I was wrapped in the warm sensation that made my head spin. He didn’t draw out the process, pulling out all of his favorite tricks. I reached my limit quickly, and was more than eager to return the favor.

  
After we had both been taken care of, Levi made it his goal in life to get us both in and out of the shower in record time, and started helping me pack. He had given me no further details on what was going to go on during this vacation or how long I should expect to be away from home, but I almost didn’t mind. I hadn’t gotten out of this town in almost a year, and a change of scenery seemed like a good idea.

  
Levi had been spouting orders at me, rapid fire, for the past few seconds, trying to get us both out the door before we lost too much daylight.

  
"We should take a few blankets too," Levi said as he finished off his latest list of instructions, "oh," he said turning and looking at me, "bring money."

  
"How much?" I asked as we both walked out of my bedroom and towards the front door.

  
"As much as you can spare," Levi said.

  
I nodded and thought about the money I had saved up in my account. I subtracted rent and money I would need for food from the mental figure I had created and frowned at the result. It wasn’t much, but assuming Levi was planning on supplying some of the funds himself, it would be enough to get lost for a while. I would need to stop at the bank.

  
I wound my way out of my apartment to see Levi filling the car with both of our things. I couldn’t help but stop and watch for a little while. I was so madly in love with him. I had long since committed to memory the way he spoke, moved, the way he smiled. It had been almost a year since I’d met him, and I couldn’t imagine the way my life would have gone these past few months if he hadn’t been intertwined in it all. After I decided I’d stared enough, I began to make my way down the stairs.

  
“Hey,” Levi greeted me breathlessly, “get your shit together we have to leave,” he announced as he slipped into the driver’s seat.

  
I laughed and shook my head at him before piling my things into the car and sliding into the passenger’s seat. I turned on the music, and Levi started to drive.

  
I had never believed in a “natural” high before. They always preached that stuff in high school and I had never once thought it was real, but driving down the road next to the person I loved, screaming the words to all the songs on the radio, I started to believe what I had been taught so many years ago. I was getting high off his looks, and drunk off his laughter. I had never believed that I could feel this strongly for another person in my entire life, yet here I was in complete awe of the man sitting next to me.

  
Was this how powerful love was?

  
If it was, I didn't want it to stop.

  
The sky was dark long before we decided we were both too exhausted to keep driving. We were in the middle of nowhere, the tall grass of a field surrounded either side of the road. We pulled into a little indent in the dirt designed for people that were too tired to continue driving and turned off the car. Levi was the first out grabbing the blankets and his guitar case from the back of the car. I had seen the case many times during my escapades with him, but I had never seen him play anything. He lugged the armloads of supplies with him out into the grass. I walked behind him and laughed. One of the edges of the blanket didn’t fit in his hold and dragged across the ground behind him. I pulled it out of his arms, and laid it out on the ground when we decided we were far enough away from the asphalt.

  
"I didn't know you played guitar," I said as I laid down and looked up at the stars.

  
"Yeah," he said, "when I was a kid my sister took lessons, then she would come home and teach me. Between the two of us, I was the only one who stuck with it."

  
"What can you play?" He had begun to tune it, picking up on the variations within the sound of each string with the precision of someone who had done it their entire life.

  
"That depends. What do you want to hear?" he was an expert when it came to answering my questions with questions.   
"If it’s you singing, I think I could listen to anything.”

  
He replied only by smirking and playing an intentional sour chord, “You sure about that?”

"Damn," I said placing my hand over my chest and feigning enjoyment, "I think that chord just spoke to my soul, baby, do it again."

Levi laughed and solved my shoulder, "I fucking hate you." 

  
“Of course you do,” I said looking over at him and giggling as he began to play in earnest.

  
He only sang when I didn’t know the words to one of the songs, but when he did I realized that I wanted to drown in his voice. He sang so intimately, so quiet and low, that it would have been impossible to not get lost in the sound and forget the words. I was exhausted, and the sound of his songs followed me into my dreams. I reveled in the sounds as they lulled me to sleep.

  
Levi was a blanket hog. I had realized this the first time he had spent the night at my house, and usually I was warm enough that I didn’t mind shedding the covers halfway through the night, but outside in the cold was a different story entirely. I fought with a sleeping Levi over the one blanket before deciding to cut my losses and accept the fact that I was going to be cold for the rest of the night. I drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the night before rising with the sun. I looked over at the ravenette beside me and smiled. His face had been crumpled by sleep and wrapped in my blankets, he looked almost like a lump of dirt. If lumps of dirt could be incredibly loveable. 

  
I slowly got up and looked over to where the car was parked. It wasn’t as far away as it had seemed the night before, I could make it in one trip. Gingerly, I lifted Levi into my arms, making sure he was asleep and secure before picking up the guitar case. Getting everything into the car was much more of a challenge. I placed him in the passenger's seat, and he immediately curled up like he always did when he slept. I placed the guitar in the back before sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine.

  
I looked over at Levi, he was smiling ever so slightly, "How long have you been awake for?"

  
"A while," he replied as he nestled himself further into the blanket, “I’m surprised you didn’t say anything embarrassing while you thought I was asleep, I was banking on getting some blackmail material out of this.”

  
“I think I’ve sent you far too many nudes for you to not have blackmail material by now.”

  
“I know,” he said sitting up and looking over at me, “but I like them too much to use them as blackmail.”

  
“Oh, really?” I said stealing a glance over at him.

  
“Mhm,” he said snuggling back down into the blanket.

"What would you be considering blackmail material then."

He sighed and opened his eyes, "I mean I was hoping for some sort of secret, you know, like: 'I secretly get off to the thought of you taking a shit,' or something like that."

I could have crashed right there from laughter, "I'm sorry I'm not into enough kinky shit for you, love."

"It's okay" he said stretching, "you're forgiven." 

  
The day seemed almost like a repeat of the day before, and the next two weeks passed in comfortable consistency. We ignored the world at home to find ourselves lost in a world abroad. We drove and stayed in tiny towns that no one had ever hear of, and cities that were known around the world. Money started to run dry, and we found ourselves in a casino town.  
We had parked several streets away from the main drag, and had walked down the streets. It was evening, and the lights of the city were starting to illuminate. Neon stung the black of the night sky and turned it a milky purple. We would need most of the money we had to get back home, but we intended to spend the small amount that was leftover here. The dark erased the dinginess of the street from our minds and the people around us started to mill about more vigorously as the night picked up speed.

  
"Do you gamble?" Levi asked, gesturing with his thumb to the entrance of one of the many casinos that lined the street.

  
"No," I said brushing it off, "it's not really my scene."

  
He nodded and we continued walking. His hand dangled at the side of his body and swung lazily back and forth as he walked. It was taunting me to reach out and grab it, a taunt that I rose to. Levi looked down at or hands and smiled as I interlaced our fingers. The small gesture made me ignite with something more that lust. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, I realized in that moment.

  
I was so caught up in my own thoughts I failed to notice Levi staring at me until he cupped my cheek with his free hand and directed my gaze to meet his, "Your eyes are really big," he started, "and they reflect all the lights. It’s like I’m looking into a galaxy comprised only of you."

  
I laughed at him, "Sometimes your compliments make you sound like you're high.”

  
“Wow,” he said scoffing at me and pulling his hand away from mine, “I pour my heart out to you and you tell me I sound high. Real nice, Eren,” he looked almost genuinely irritated.

  
“Sorry,” I replied lowering my head. I had meant it as a joke.

  
He chuckled dryly at me, "It's true though. Your eyes are really pretty."

  
"Thank you," I said.

  
I knew if I intended to remain sober I would have to drag myself back to the car soon. It was so easy to get caught up in lost all the excess in cities like these. I could smell the liquor seeping out of the pores of the people that passed us, and it reminded me too much of all the nights I had spent in their shoes, how alive I’d felt in those moments, and how easy and tempting it was to return there. I gripped Levi’s had a little tighter and trusted that if my resolve broke he wouldn’t let me betray the promise I had made to myself.

  
"Levi," I said, he looked up at me, "I think these past few weeks have been the best time I’ve ever had."

  
He smiled up at me, “I couldn't agree more.”

  
He stopped abruptly, pulling my arm and stopping me too.

  
"What is it?" I asked looking in the direction Levi was.

  
"Do you wanna get a tattoo?" he asked turning his gaze from me to the neon sign that read “TATTOO” in bright red letters. I watched it blink on and off trying to decided if he was being serious or not.

  
"We should get a matching set," I said jokingly, laughing at him.

  
"Yeah, we should," he sounding too serious, pulling me towards the entrance. We entered the door and were greeted by a flight of stairs. At the top, there was a glass door with the hours and parlor logo stuck to it.

  
"Wait, wait, wait! Are we actually going to do this?" I asked him trying to discern if he was joking.

  
"Eren," he replied looking directly at me, “I take my art very seriously, plus I think it would be fun.”

  
I had never gotten a tattoo before, but I wanted something permanent to remind me of the person that stood before me. I wanted to be able to look at something and remember just how it felt to call him mine, even if we fell apart in the end, “I’m in,” I responded, he smiled at me as he pushed open the door.

  
A short woman with long black hair greeted us as we walked in, “What can I do for you?” she said, obviously not trying to seem exctatic. She could have been Levi’s doppleganger. It occurred to me that we hadn’t even thought about what we wanted to get, but Levi looked like he had a plan. He asked to borrow a pen and paper and started sketching what looked like a moon rising over a beach. He didn’t finish the sketch, but the woman nodded at his description and started to sketch a version of her own.

  
"Is this what you want?" she asked, flipping the paper towards us.

  
"Yes," Levi replied and I nodded.

  
The process took much longer than I had anticipated, seeing that the woman that had greeted us was the only one working. We talked and she warmed up to us eventually. I went first. I had decided that our wrists would be the best place for the ink, it was a small and fairly simple design so the needle work only took about twenty five minutes for each of us. While I was trying not to twitch my hand under the strange sensation, Levi was sketching something else. 

  
His turn came and he presented the woman with the second paper, which she also made a sketch of and placed the outline on the side of his ribcage. He sat on the table, shirtless, for what might have been an hour and fifteen. I was getting bored by the time his session was coming to an end. The conversations that we had been having with one another and the artist had dropped and the only noises now were the sound of the needle and the music playing softly in the background. I got a good look at the final product when the artist announced that she was done and Levi sat up. It was just an outline in black, plain and simple, but it looked like what would have been a crescent moon with flowers blooming from the shadowed side. It was simplistic but the negative space implied much more detail.

  
I nodded at it as Levi inspected it himself, “Awesome,” he exclaimed.

  
“It suits you,” I replied, allowing my eyes to drift up and down his body, lingering on the tattoo, I could get used to it.

  
The artist wrapped the tattoo and gave us instructions on how to care for them while they were still more or less open wounds while we paid. The last of our funds were spent on the tattoos, and I couldn’t have been more excited about our purchases. We both headed out on the town and ended up exploring all of the hidden corners of the main drag before the adrenalin wore off and we headed back to the car. I drove first, and Levi used the time to catch up on some sleep. I had to pull off the road and follow suit not long after. The day had exhausted me.

  
As I fell asleep I wondered about what was going on back home. I hadn’t even picked up my phone since we started off. I couldn’t bring myself to care if our friends would be mad at us, I wouldn’t have traded these past few weeks for the world.   
It took much less time to get home than it had to get lost, and within a few days we found ourselves pulling into the home stretch of our adventure as the sun began to set. It was dark by the time we pulled up to my apartment and decided that everything in the back could wait til tomorrow to be dealt with. We both needed showers, desperately. Levi borrowed some of my clothes and left for the bathroom. I was too exhausted to pounce on him while he was vulnerable, so I waited in my bedroom. I had almost drifted off by the time Levi was out and prodding me towards the shower saying he wouldn’t be caught dead in the same bed as me until I was washed.

  
"I really like this sweater," Levi said to me once I had gotten out of the shower. He nestled his face into the collar to prove his point. It was far too big for him.

  
“I’m glad you enjoy my things so much,” I said laying down on the bed beside him.

  
He leaned over to where I was splayed out and kissed my cheek, “I love you.”

  
I grabbed the base of his neck and gently guided our faces together so my lips could capture his, “I love you too.” 


	14. Introductions

Levi woke up when the very first early rays of light started to peek into the windows of my apartment. He opened all of the windows as wide as they could go before coming back to sleep with me. It didn’t surprise me that he was too hot already, he had stolen almost all of the covers off my bed and made a nest for himself within them. I listened to the world outside as everything started to awaken. I drifted in and out of sleep and thought of no much more than the feeling of the breeze across my skin.

  
It was still too early to function when I heard a slight knock on the door. Instinctively I yelled, "What?" Levi jolted into consciousness at the sound of my voice, “Sorry,” I mumbled to him.

  
"Oh my god!" I heard Petra shout, "Eren is that you?"

  
"Yeah," I said groggily, starting to get out of bed.

  
Levi tried to convince me to stay in bed, breifly, but soon gave up and followed me as I walked to open the door.

  
Petra was a very mild mannered person. She would never yell at people or get angry in general, but as soon as I opened the door she stormed over to us, shouting all kinds of profanities.

  
"How dare you two fucking run away without telling any of us! We were worried fucking sick and thought you two were fucking dead!” She grabbed Levi by the collar and pulled his face closer to hers,"You fucking owe us so fucking much it's not even funny. We were looking for you all over the place. And no one could find you two you didn't even leave a note we were fucking terrified!" she shouted.

  
It was one of the more funny things I had seen that morning, Levi wasn’t even phased by her outburst, he just stood there as she yelled at him. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  
She released her death grip on his shirt to grab his arm, "What the hell is this?" She yelled looking at his wrist tattoo, "You got a tattoo? Seriously?"

  
She marched around our apartment for several more minutes yelling at and about everything, when she finally calmed down she acknowledged my existence for the first time that morning.

  
"Hello Eren!" She said in her usual perky voice.

  
"Uh, hi," I said giving her a small wave.

  
She groaned when she saw the tattoo on my wrist, "You got one too?" She asked.

  
"Yeah," I said looking at it, “pretty cool, huh?”

  
She sighed and pulled her phone out of her pocket. I already knew who she was calling before she started talking.

  
Levi wandered off to the kitchen and I could hear him making coffee. He emerged minutes later with three mugs in hand. One he handed to Petra, who was still yelling at Hanji and the others over the phone, and one to me. We both took our mugs and sat on the couch.

  
“I feel like a kid,” Levi mumbled over the rim of his mug.

  
“How so?”

  
“I don’t think I’ve been in this much trouble since I was,” he paused, “nine, probably.”

  
I laughed and turned my attention to Petra who had hung up the phone, “I hope you two are happy with yourselves, everyone was so worried about you two.”

  
I was barely able to suppress my laughter. She would make a great mother someday, she had the guilt-tripping down pat already. Plus she was practically our mother as is, our friend mom of sorts. 

  
She finished her coffee and cooled off a little, she talked about what had been going on the past few weeks and how everyone had been. We listened more than talked, I could tell Petra just needed to be able to talk for a while. By the time the rest of our friends arrived, she was downright chipper.

  
“Eren! Levi!” I heard Hanji shout from the other side of the door. I hoped she knew I would most definitely get a noise complaint from both her and Petra yelling.

  
I heard a round of “shut up”’s and “don’t yell so loudly”’s before a knock came at the door.

  
"It’s unlocked," I said letting irritation seep into my voice. It was too damn early to deal with all our friends at once.

  
Hanji was the first, as always, to burst through the door. The rest of the people I had come to know as my friends piled in after her. She wasted no time. She ran into the place and was blabbering and laughing about how she was worried about us and how she was happy that she was home. She had attached herself to Levi’s midsection and refused to let go. While everyone got over the shock of seeing and welcoming us home, I braced myself for the questions that would be coming for us.

  
"Get off me shit glasses!" Levi said without any malice, trying to push her off of him.

  
"Oooh!" She exclaimed suddenly. Lifting the sweater I had lent Levi over his head, "What's this?"

  
He sighed and accepted his fate. His arms were dangling up over the fabric that Hanji kept taut as she examined the ink on his side.

  
"That wasn't there before was it?" Hanji asked with a smirk.

  
"Fuck off," he said pulling his shirt down again with minimal resistance from his captor.

  
Suddenly she turned towards me with the same expression. She let go of Levi and pounced on me, and held me in the same position. For her size she was heavy, and much stronger than I had anticipated. She had me pinned and stripped of my shirt beneath her before I even really had time to react.

  
"Aww," she said bringing her face uncomfortably close to my chest as she inspected the side of my ribcage, "you don't have one too?"

  
"No," I said gently, "You're kind of crushing my rib cage right now." I need the sentence as more of a question than a statement, hoping she would take the hint. 

  
"I'm disappointed in you guys," she said as she got off me, "you ran off and you didn't even get matching tattoos, or anything."

  
My hand went to my wrist without me trying to make it do so. Hanji pounced on me again, but this time her iron grip found my arm and held it up to her face so she could inspect it. She saw the small tattoo on my wrist, and giggled before turning to Levi. Who sighed and held up his hand so she could see his too.

  
"I am officially," Hanji said with a lot of gusto, "un-disappointed in you two."

  
"So," Oluo asked, "where did you guys go?"

  
"Everywhere," Levi said.

 

"Define everywhere," he said looking over at me.

  
"I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t know where we were most of the time," I answered, "we just drove."

  
"Don't you want to know?" Nabana asked.

  
"No," I replied, "I just really don’t care it was an impromptu adventure, and if I had wanted to know where I was I would have taken note, but getting lost was much more enjoyable than anything I could have asked for."

  
"Ah," she replied.

  
A flurry of questions were asked all at once, but after they had had their fill, the groups slowly started to leave. They walked out the door offering half-assed excuses as they went and finally Levi and I were left alone. I laid down on the couch and Levi crawled over top of me; he supported himself with his elbows so his face could hover over mine. He was so close to me, his hair just barely brushed the sides of my face.

  
"You are so beautiful," he whispered, before leaning down to capture my lips with his. As we laid there in the silence that followed I realized that I wanted an eternity of moments like this. I wanted to be eighty and have moments like this. There was so much I wanted from him. I felt so selfish I knew that as long as we were together I would ask so much of him, and I don’t know if I would ever be capable of returning the favor.

  
I had once been told that there was a spot at the base of someone's skull, where their spine connected to it, that would make someone go completely weak for you. I, of course, had never experienced this first hand but I was willing to keep trying, even if it turned out to be an old tale people told one just for the sake of tradition.

  
My hand traced the upper part of Levi's neck, and found its way to the small portion of his spine that was connected to the base of his skull, and slowly pushed down in a circular movement and moved around trying to find the fabled spot. To this day I haven’t been able to find it, and I believe that its existence is not entirely based in fact. Well unless you can consider giving back massages foreplay.

  
Levi pulled away from the kiss and pushed his neck against my fingers, "You are really good at that," he said, directing my hands down his back. So much for that.

  
Levi and I had both been invited to a party the next day. I didn’t know why the party was being thrown and after asking around realized that no one else really did either. It was gigantic. People were spilling out of the already monstrous house and onto the street surrounding it.

  
"Eren?" Levi shouted over the music.

  
"Yeah?" I shouted back.

  
"Do you want to go outside for a bit?" he screamed at me, gesturing towards the door.

  
"Sure," I replied.

  
He took my hand and led me out the back door. There were surprisingly few people out back, but the wall that was separating us from the rest of the people inside did little to block out their yelling and the music. I could still feel the bump of the bass in my chest.

  
"This is crazy," Levi said.

  
"Yeah, I'm not a huge fan," I said truthfully. It had been a long time since I’d been at a party like this, and it didn’t bring to mind the best memories.

  
"Yeah," Levi responded, looking out over the pool in the backyard. I had no idea why it wasn’t filled to the brim with people, it seemed like people flocked to pools at parties, but the water was almost perfectly still. It was beautifully blue, and with the white lights that lined the bottom, it could almost pass as a mid-afternoon sky.

  
I turned and looked at Levi he had his head tilted up, "The sky is beautiful tonight."

  
"Yes, it is," I said glancing up before walking over the the only one who could rival the beauty of the stars tonight. 

  
I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him closer, he instinctively draped his arms over my shoulders, and we began to sway to the slow beat of the music escaping the house. Levi closed his eyes and buried his face in my shoulder. We had approached the edge of the pool with the small steps we had been taking. Something seemed off about him, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

  
"Are you okay?" I asked pulling away slightly to look at his face.

  
"Yeah," he replied eyes still closed. He was using a soft tone of voice with me, "I just have a headache. That's all," he smiled reassuring me everything was okay. I didn’t question him further.

  
I didn't say anything, I just closed my eyes and felt Levi's body move with mine. The sound of the water beside us put me at ease.

  
I felt movement to my side, it was gentle at first, and to be honest I thought it was Levi, but soon two hands shoved me. I instinctively grabbed onto Levi and pulled him down with. I was grateful we had been standing by the pool, it made for a soft landing surface. When we both surfaced we saw a group of guys laughing and standing by the edge of the pool.

  
"Oh my god," one of them laughed looking at Levi, "he can't even touch the bottom!"

  
It was true Levi was quite clearly treading water where he was. Levi started to swim towards the other end of the pool. I walked a little ways away from the group and began to pull myself up onto the edge of the pool.

  
Once I had gotten out, Levi had walked over and joined me, he grabbed my hand and started pulling me away from the group. I was glad he had I would have gladly thrown as many punches as I liked at all of their stupid faces.

  
"Hey!" The same person that I assumed pushed us in shouted at us, "Where are you going?"

  
Levi didn't even turn to look at them. I did. I regretted that. They started to follow us more and more closely, and started shouting at us after they realized that simply stalking us wouldn’t give them the reaction they wanted. We tried our best to ignore them, but the insults got progressively harder and harder to brush off.

  
One of the men approached us, he grabbed Levi by the collar, "Why are you wearing all black?" The man growled at him, "I thought fags only dressed in rainbow colors?"

  
Levi pulled his hand off of his collar and looked him straight in the eyes, "Is that the worst you've got?" he looked like he could kill the group with his bare hands, "You really think I haven't heard that before?"

  
The group didn't respond.

  
Levi narrowed his eyes before saying in the same low tone, "Hm, pity, you can't even come up with original insults."

  
Rage was written all over our attackers face as he threw a slow punch at Levi. He was able to dodge it, thankfully, but I wasn’t about to let that go. I tried to step between them, but the previous slowness of our attacker seemed to be gone, he lunged at Levi, grabbing him by the throat. Levi immediately pulled out the small knife that I’d learned he kept on it at almost all time. Silver met with his skin and I could see the exact moment he decided it might not be worth it anymore.

  
"Do you really want to go there?" He asked in a sickly calm voice.

  
The released his throat and Levi stalked backwards until he at a safe distance. He turned around and we both walked back to my car. I was wet and cold, and in no mood to deal with anyone else's bullshit. I just wanted to go. Neither Levi nor I spoke the entire ride home. We both knew better than to try and have a conversation while we were both angry. I was still in shock that. It had actually happened. That was the first time I’d ever been met with such violent homophobia, granted the people I surrounded myself had never cared about who I was with, but it still sent my mind reeling.

  
We reached my apartment, but even as I killed the engine of the car, neither of us moved.

  
“I need a shower,” Levi said, still not making any effort to get out of his seat.

  
“Me too,” I replied still facing forward.

  
“Weird night, huh?” He said laughing dryly.

  
“Yeah,” I paused and let the silence surround us again, “was that the first time something like that’s ever happened to you?”

  
“No,” he replied looking down at his hands, “it’s happened before, but I’ve always made sure to be careful. The first time it happened I wasn’t and,” he paused, “it didn’t really end well for either of us,” I nodded, “What about you?”

  
I looked up and his eyes had locked onto mine, “That’s honestly never happened to me before.”

  
He made a small noise of surprise before his eyes dropped, “The word’s full of assholes,” he laughed again, more genuinely this time. I joined him briefly, before stepping out of the car. He followed behind me as I unlocked to door and stepped inside. He started to slowly make his way to my shower. He stopped as I plopped down on the couch, “You’re not going to join me?”

  
“I didn’t know I was invited,” I said turning around to look at him. Those beautiful eyes met mine again and I felt my heart become an acrobat in my chest.

  
“The invitation is always open,” he said beckoning me towards him.

  
I didn’t even want to weigh my options, it had been a long day. I deserved a break. I stood up and quickly followed him into the bathroom.

  
"Eren?" He asked in a sweet, sexy voice I had never heard before, "what's wrong?" It felt like he was naked as soon as I'd stepped through the door, wet clothes in a pile, discarded. Each step he took towards me made his hips dip and swing like a pendulum. 

 

I fixed him with a stare that might have been able to melt steel, and grabbed him by the waist, "Absolutely nothing is wrong right now," I Allowed myself to take from him, as selfish as I felt, I couldn't hold myself back. 


	15. Inhale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gasp, two chapters in one day? The last chapter was my least favorite it was chunky, and weird and bad, but I couldn't figure out a way to fix it, if you have suggestions I'd love to hear them. This one is much better, I really love writing dialogue between these two and this chapter is fairly dialogue heavy.
> 
> Anyway, I love reading all the nice comments you guys have been leaving me and any criticism is more than welcome, I'm always looking for ways to improve my work! Thank you again for reading!

DWe sat on my couch and watched movies and read books all day. It was a nice quiet day, almost vergin on boring, but considering how last night had ended up, I didn't want to push anything today. Levi was still complaining about a headache. I was beginning to get worried.

  
"Don't worry about me," he said. He was speaking softly, had been all day, "it's not that bad."

  
"Okay," I said getting up from the couch, "that might be true, but I also now you’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met."

  
“I’m the only one between us with any experience in the medical field, Eren,” he said rolling onto his side to sass me, “if I thought something were seriously wrong I would go and get help.”

  
"Sure," I responded offering him some ibuprofen I had laying around. I knew then he had been lying about how much it hurt. Levi didn't like to take medicine, hell, I had to wrestle him to get hit to take vitamins. If he was agreeing to take pain meds I knew something was up.

  
After a few minutes the medicine started to kick in and Levi began to act like himself again. We resumed our positions on the couch and half watched half ignored a movie. Taking breaks between make out sessions was not exactly a good way to keep filled in on the plot. Suddenly Levi sat almost bolt upright. He had just remembered something.

  
"Hey, Eren?" he asked.

  
"Yeah," I replied.

  
"Would you be interested in doing some modeling for me?"

  
"Why? You could definitely get someone way more attractive than me to do it," I replied, "it would help with the photos."

  
"No,” he said, scolding me, "firstly, stop selling yourself short. You're gorgeous, and I will scalp anyone that says otherwise. Including you. Secondly, I was asked to take some pictures for an ad and if you aren't my model I'm not doing it."

  
I knew that he had had about as much motivation as I did to work this summer, and I knew he was tight on money. I didn't want to say yes out of pity, but it made it hard to say no, "Alright, alright. I'll do it."

  
"Good," he replied nuzzling his head into my chest again, "I’ll make you up tomorrow, I just need a few shots."

  
“What is it for?” I asked.

  
He sighed resting his chin on my chest so he could look directly at me, “A marker company from, wherever, I don’t remember, saw some of my work a little while back and decided they should include me in their-” he made quotes with his fingers, “-'campaign.' It’s all about how their markers are versatile so they are sending a bunch of them to different artists and having them draw things with them on unconventional canvasses and blah, blah, blah. But I have an idea, it should be pretty cool if I can pull it off.”

  
“So why do you need me? Can’t you just do, whatever?”

  
“Yes, but they sent me some samples from some of the other people that had done it, and basically all my ideas had been taken accept drawing on a person, so I decided to go with that.”

  
“Or you just want to see me naked,” I said, “you perv.”

  
“I never said anything about you being naked,” he said defensively.

  
“I know, but knowing you that was your idea, right?”

  
“No,” he said unconvincingly, “Maybe, but that’s not the point.”

  
“Or is it?”

  
“It’s not I swear!” He said laughing and pushing my shoulder, “I mean, it is a point, but it’s not the one I was going for.”

  
“Okay, okay,” I said laughing as he settled back into me. I was exhausted for not doing anything all day. I fell asleep to the sound of the TV in the background.

  
The next morning Levi didn't have a headache, which was a good sign But it gave no explanation as to why he felt the need to drag me out of the house and to his place at 7:45.

  
"Why so early?" I groaned.

  
"Because it is going to take a long-ass time and I don’t want to have to rush," he replied.

  
"Why, can’t we just do it between two days?"

  
"No, if I took two days that would mean you wouldn’t be able to wash yourself for two days and I am not about to get in bed next to someone who is covered in marker," he said looking straight forward.

  
"I don't understand you," I replied.

  
"It's okay," he said looking up at me and patting me on the cheek, "you don't need to."

  
We walked up the stars that I swore would give way someday beneath me to Levi’s apartment. He fumbled with his keys for a while, he laughed eventually staring at his key ring, “I’m over at your house so often I don’t even know which key is to my door anymore.”

  
“Maybe it’s a sign from the universe.”

  
“Really? And what is the universe trying to hint at here?” He asked smiling at me as he tried to unlock the door.

  
“That you need to move in with me,” I replied.

  
“Well then, the universe is full of shit,” He said still laughing.

  
“What? Why I was being serious?”

  
“I don’t think you want to live with me, Eren,” he said finally finding the right key, “You would have to deal with this mess,” he said gesturing to all the various canvasses that scattered his apartment.

  
“I could tolerate it,” I said walking in, “on one condition, though.”

  
“Which is,” Levi trailed off waiting from my response.

  
I smiled, “We get to live in my place, and we can fuck literally whenever and where ever. Our home would be freerange.”

  
“That’s two conditions, dumb shit,” he paused, “maybe three, depending on how you count but, yes, I can agree to both slash all of them.”

  
“Yes!” I said throwing my hands up in victory.

  
Levi walked over to the counter and picked up a package of monochrome markers, he turned to me before looking me up and down, “Strip.”

  
I did as I was asked the, quicker this was over with, the quicker I could spend the rest of the day doing what I needed to do. He led me to his bedroom and instructed me to lay down, “If this is some elaborate trick to get me to sleep with you, you can stop right now, I’ll do it anyway.”

  
He shook his head at me, “Is that all you ever think about? Lie on your stomach, please.”

  
“Yes,” I answered rolling over onto my stomach.

  
I heard him uncap the marker and soon the cold felt was pressed against my skin. I jumped a little at the contact and Levi immediately jerked upwards, “Don’t do that stay still.”

  
“I’m sorry,” I said relaxing again, “it’s cold.”

  
I spend the rest of the day in varying positions, completely naked and trying to stay as still as humanly possible. It was strangely relaxing being drawn on I kept almost falling asleep, which would earn me various warnings from Levi.   
Eventually he sat back and told me to stand up. I obliged, “Spin for me,” he said analyzing every inch of my skin. I did as I was told and came to rest facing him.

  
“Good enough,” he sighed, “you wanna see?”

  
"Of course," I replied as he started to lead me towards a mirror. I was covered in intractable patterns. They stared on my back and sprawled outwards in various directions, coming to rest when I ran out of body to hold them, “Wow, Levi, this is incredible.”

  
"Thank you,” he said standing up, stretching, “Ready to go take some pictures?"

  
"Yeah," I replied still looking at myself in awe. 

  
He allowed me to admire myself more while he took to making the room look more presentable. He changed the sheets and the duvet, opened the blinds to let the natural light in, and cleaned off the floor, “Get comfortable,” he said nodding towards his bed as he adjusted the settings on his camera.

  
I allowed myself to spread out across his bed, I had no idea what to with all of my limbs so I just let them fall naturally into place.

  
Click.

  
I snapped to attention at the sound of the camera, “Wait! I wasn’t ready!” I said.

  
“Calm down,” Levi said eyes trained on the screen of the digital camera, “it was just a test shot to make sure all the settings are right.”

  
There were several more test shot before he got everything the way he wanted, “Aright,” he said standing up again and walking towards me, “ready?”

  
“As I’ll ever be,” I said stretching out.

  
“Look natural,” he said looking through the viewfinder of the camera.

  
“I don’t know how to do that.”

  
“Just,” he snapped a photo, “pretend I’m not taking pictures of you, if it were just me here how you you act?”

  
I did as I was told for the next half hour.

  
Click.

  
Click.

  
Click.

  
By the time Levi had the photos he wanted I was thoroughly exhausted. I didn’t know posing for pictures took so much work. It had been a constant barrage of, “Don’t do that, put this here, you look like you’re about to shit yourself, stop making that face.”

  
“Okay,” he said clicking through all the photos he had taken, “I think,” he paused, “that’s all I need from you,” he looked up at me and smiled, “thank you!”

  
“You’re welcome,” I said getting up and making my way to the shower. Levi had failed to mention that the markers were permanent before he had covered me in them. I stepped out of the show're the first time, and even though a considerable amount of ink had come off with the water, the outlines were still extremely visible. I took another shower, and came out with similar results. I sighed as I looked that the patterns that covered part of my face, “Well, at least their pretty,” I said to myself before walking out of the bathroom.

  
I walked out in little more than a towel, and Levi was still on his computer, working. It irritated me, "Levi," I called, "you had to be professional with me all day, are you not going to at least pretend that you love me?"

  
"I have to work first," he said leaning backwards and brushing his lips against mine, "then I'll go back to pretending I love you," he smiled at me.

  
"You bastard, pretending to love someone is a horrible crime," I mocked coming over to sit with him.

  
"I know," he said, gently patting my face for the second time that day, "but I’m behind on rent so you’ll have to endure it for a little while longer."

  
"Fine," I said pouting overdramatically. I pushed my way onto his lap, pulling his computer onto mine so he could work. I looped my arms soured his neck and watched as he refreshed his email inbox.

  
He had sent almost all of the pictures to the company, some he had assured were only for him and wouldn't be going to anyone else. A reply soon popped up on the screen and he eagerly clicked it.

  
"They like this one best," he said pointing to his screen. If you had asked me what was going on in most of the pictures we had taken that day, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, but this one I remembered. I was on my back and Levi had been standing over me. I had covered myself, but something he had said made me laugh. He had captured a genuine smile. I like the photo the best out of the ones we had taken too.

  
"I look hot,” I said inspecting the photo more closely.

  
He laughed and bumped against me gently, "You always look hot. I love you."

  
"I love you too," I said kissing the top of his head, “you leave me speechless sometimes, you know that right?”

  
"Have I made the writer run out of words?" He said smiling.

  
"Yes," I relied gently nuzzling my face into his head. I let my hands wander again and trace the lines beneath his shirt. In actuality I hadn’t run out of words, but none of the ones I could conjure up did him justice. Graceful sounded too put together, beautiful and handsome were too impersonal, pretty wasn’t near strong enough, and cute didn’t begin to cover it. Kind didn’t describe the unending empathy and compassion that he had for those he was close to and hardworking was too short to compensate for all the hours he put into everything to make it come out. In his case, perhaps, the best adjective I could have ever used to describe him wasn’t an adjective at all. He was Levi, and no matter how many dictionaries and thesauruses I could ever dig through would do as good a job of defining him as he did himself.

  
He tried to finish editing the photo and writing a description, but I had my mind set on distracting him. He gave up and kissed me softly, and I touched him gently. Even before our clothes had come if felt like one of the most intimate things I'd ever done with another person. It was beautifully slow and careful. I was used to the fast and frantic feeling that often came with physicality, but this was something completely different. We weren't here for the sake of relief or indulgence. It didn't feel like what we were doing was for the sake of satisfying an urge, it felt much more like love. It was palpable and thick, and I had never believed that you could touch love, but I was sure I'dcome close in that moment. The night didn't leave me feeling like I'd just had a good fuck, it left me feeling exposed, bare, raw almost. Like everything that I'd tried to bury within me suddenly was at the surface of my skin, with Levi stroking it into submission. 

  
That night it didn't feel like just fucking, it felt like we were making love, and I realized that maybe I didn't need words to describe Levi, maybe I could be satisfied with accepting that he was an unattainable idea. He was like poetry, difficult to define, but I was completely indifferent to what it meant so long as I was able to get lost in it. 


	16. Pique

Levi started to get headaches more and more often. I was concerned. It was like he was constantly hungover. I wanted to push to get him to go to the doctor, but every time I tried to bring it up he would insist that he was fine. I worried about him. It was summer, and he was cooped up in the house most of the time, it made me sadder than I would ever admit. 

  
He had moved all of his stuff into my house by that time, and the happiness I should have felt by the fact that we were living together was overshadowed by the emptiness that soon found a permanent spot in my heart. We started to talk less as the school year started again. We were both busy I knew that but it still felt like Levi was becoming distant. It made me wonder if moving in together had been a mistake.

  
"Levi," I said gently. He was having one of the worst headaches I had ever seen. He was lying on our bed with all the lights off and windows closed, and he still had his hands clamped to the sides of his head, rubbing his temples, "you really need to go to the doctor this is getting out of hand."

  
"No," he said softly, "this just _happens_ sometimes. I'll get really bad headaches for a few months, then they go away."

  
"Levi," I said a bit too loudly. I was done dealing with his excuses, I just wanted to have the person I loved back, "that's not normal, you need to go to the doctor! I'm taking you!"

  
He squirmed away from me slightly, "No, please don't, it's okay," he whimpered, "please don't take me to the doctor, please," he was begging me, “I’ve gone before and they didn’t know what was going on, but they told me not to worry about it,” I noticed that tears started to fall from his eyes, which were clamped shut. I didn't know if he was crying from the pain, or the thought of going to the doctor, but it was pitiful. It occurred to me for the first time that he might have been trying more to convince himself that he was okay than he was me. He was probably just as scared as I was. He was probably as unsure as anyone else and if he had gotten a professional opinion before, I didn't know what I should do. 

  
I sighed, sat next to his head, and pulled it into my lap. I stoked his forehead, a crease grew between his eyebrows, I moved to his hair and played with it. I ran the strands between my fingers. He was pitiful. Horribly so. I tried to do something to distract him. Eventually, he fell asleep, and I left him alone. It took another few hours for him to wake up, but the headache had subsided.

  
He had been right. After that the headaches came less frequently and were less strong. I was relieved. Maybe the doctors had been right, maybe this wasn’t anything to worry about. After a few weeks the headaches completely disappeared and he went back to his normal self.

  
When the fall came I got a full time job at a small publishing company. I was an editor, but I planned on working my way up through the ranks and eventually becoming a writer. Levi started to paint more and sell more. It felt like after 20 years of trying to bullshit my way through life everything was finally coming together.

  
“We have to paint that wall sometime,” Levi said as he yawned and crawled into bed with me. I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do with the wall that had remained undecorated since I moved in. To be entirely honest I had forgotten all about it, “When’s your next day off? I’ll buy something for it.”

  
I had to think about it, between classes in the morning and work in the afternoons and on weekends I barely had time to do anything . This was being an adult I guess, “Next,” I paused and thought more, “Friday, I think, unless something comes up.”

  
"Perfect," he said as he nuzzled his face into my chest, "I love you."

  
"I love you too."

  
Friday came all too quickly and before it felt like I had counted to ten I was walking into the hardware store with Levi at my side.

  
"Welcome," an overly perky man greeted us at the door, "is there anything I can help you find today?"

  
"No," I replied, "but thank you."

  
"Alright," said the man who was still so enthusiastic it made me wonder how much he got paid.

  
We walked directly to the paint section. Levi walked over to the free swatches of paint they had for display. He almost immediately picked up three colors, "What about these?" He spoke in a hushed tone. He had pulled out a pastel red, orange, and yellow.

  
"Sure," I replied, "but I thought you said blue or pink would look best there," I was clueless when it came to artistic things, but I did have a decent memory.

  
"Yes, but that was before I saw the way the light hits it in the afternoon. It would look almost like the entire room was on fire with these babies." He stuck his tounge out at me and shook the swatches of paper a little too vigorously. 

  
I laughed as he made eye contact with me, "Okay, sounds like a great idea," I whispered back as I kissed the top of his head, I trusted his judgement, "I love it when things are on fire."

  
He smiled at me and bought the paint as well as some tape and brushes. The walk back home was a little bit difficult, but we managed. I couldn't deny, I was excited. It might have been the fact that I was finally getting something done, but also it might have been the fact that this was one of the most domestic things I had ever done. I was finally starting to get the life I had always dreamed of having, the one that had always seemed so far out of reach but now it was a reality. I felt like I was walking on air.

  
“What about handprints?" Levi asked as he dropped his brush and held his hands up to the wall.

  
We had been debating on what to do with the paint for the past 10 minutes, and, honestly, this was the only idea that had appealed to both of us, "Sure," I said smiling at him and dropping my brush. We had already taped the wall and opened the paint it was easy to change from brushes to hands.

  
"Ready?" Levi asked looking at me with the smile that still gave me butterflies.

  
"Always," I replied as I dipped my hands in the paint.

  
Levi followed my lead and dipped his hands in the paint before we both slapped them on the wall. We had no particular pattern to doing things, but the colors that we had picked out didn't require a pattern to look good together. I had never thought that doing housework could be fun, but I wouldn't have changed that moment for the world. We were approximately halfway done with the wall when I couldn't resist the urge anymore. I flicked just a little bit of paint at him. I hit the mark. Smack dab in the center of his cheek bloomed a small splatter of orange. He looked up from his work to smile and flick paint back at me. What began as innocent paint flicking soon escalated, and by the time we decided enough was enough, we were both almost covered in paint. I stood across from Levi and looked him in the eyes. We both laughed, and Levi stepped closer and gently wrapped his arms around my neck; I immediately knew to pull him closer and place my arms around his waist. He closed his eyes and kissed me, "You're so cute.”

  
"I'm not cute," he started quietly. He paused and looked up at me with what was clearly the most adorable face he could pull, "I'm manly as hell."

  
"Okay," I replied laughing, before I kissed his forehead and the paint that covered it, "definitely manly as hell."

  
"Anyway," Levi said pulling away from me, "we should finish the wall."

  
"Ugh," I replied with mock dismay.

  
"I know I know," Levi said.

  
The first mistake I had made was thinking that we could reach the top of the wall with just our hands, but as Levi stood on his tiptoes to try and reach as far up as he could I came up with a solution. I backed away from the wall and positioned myself behind him, he didn't notice I had moved. The second mistake I made was not altering him to what I was about to do, after all carrying someone on your shoulders is kind of a team effort, but it had made sense to me at the time. The first attempt at my plan didn't end well. Levi ended up dangling halfway off my back and I ended up sprawling forwards. The second attempt worked though, so I guess my plan hadn't been a complete failure.

  
"Now you can reach the top of the wall," I pointed out.

  
"Yeah," he replied, "but I can't really reach the paint."

  
"Shit," I said looking down at the paint cans at my feet, "hold on."

  
"Literally or figuratively?" Levi asked grabbing onto the top of my head.

  
"Both," I replied as I bent down and picked up the canisters.

  
"Aah!" he said as I leaned slightly over, setting him off balance, "Eren!" he was laughing softly.

  
I held the cans and stood back up, "Just tell me what color you need," I said.

  
"Alright," Levi replied, "can I have the red?"

 

I tried to figure out if there was a pattern to the way Levi called out to me. But if there was a pattern I eventually decided it was too complex for me to care about. 

 

"Step back," Levi ordered, he was still seated on my shoulders, "I wanna see how it turned out."

  
I obeyed and stepped backwards. He had been right about the colors, the afternoon sun was streaming through one of the windows and it set the room on fire.

  
"I like it," Levi said putting his hands on his tiny hips and looking down at me.

  
"Me too," I agreed staring at the wall for several more moments. I felt Levi put his hands on my face, "What are you doing?" I asked trying to pull away from his fingertips. His hands were still covered in paint. 

  
"Nothing," Levi replied, he continued to swipe his fingers across my face, "Can I have the orange?"

  
"Sure," I said laughing slightly and lifting the can up to his hand.

  
There must have been a pattern to the way he did things. I just had to be paitent enough to figure it out. 

  
"There," he announced, "you can put me down now."

  
I crouched down so he could easily step off my shoulders, "What did you do to my face?"

  
"You'll have to see," he said crossing his arms and shifting his weight slightly. He had taken to eating more and excersizing. And I would be lying if I said it wasn't doing wonders for his body. He had put on weight, muscle and a thin layer of fat gathering around his thighs, hips, and stomach for what might have been the first time in his life. 

  
"Fine," I said going along with his little game. I walked over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Even with the three minutes it took him, it was still amazing. He had used the lighter colors where the highest points of my face were and the darkest colors on the lower parts. The colors that were in the center of those extremes had been used to blend them. It was exceptional work, even more so when you added in the time factor. It was like he had made a topographical map of my face.

  
"Damn," I said inspecting myself, "will you ever cease to amaze me?"

  
“Probably, someday," Levi said poking his head into the room.

  
"I highly doubt that," I said smiling at him and shaking my head.

  
"So," he said stepping into the bathroom completely and closing the door behind him, "what do you think?"

  
"It's amazing," I said returning my gaze to the mirror, "how do you paint so well?"

  
"I don't know," Levi replied, "I bet you could paint too."

  
"Yeah, right," I scoffed, "I suck at anything that is even slightly artistic."

  
"No you wouldn't," he said pulling me into a hug from behind, "in fact, I would love to see what you could paint."

  
"Well," I said returning the hug and looking at his perfect eyes, "if I'm painting, you have to write me something."

  
"Seems fair," Levi said closing his eyes and completely relaxing into the embrace.

  
After a while the paint started to burn and we both desperately needed showers. After we were finished I sat down on the couch. I wanted to get some work done to be ahead of the game for the next few days. Levi walked up to me and sat on my lap just behind my computer. I looked at him. He was smirking at me, "What?" I said returning the smirk and closing my computer lid to see more of him.

  
"You said that if I wrote you something, you would paint me something," he sounded like he was trying to get me to buy something.

  
"You want to do that now?" I groaned skeptically.

  
"Yes," he replied firmly. He stepped off of me and picked up a canvas and a paintbrush, "here. The paint is over there."  
I sighed. So much for working.

  
I opened a new document for Levi to write in, and soon we were both absorbed in each other’s worlds. I painted for a couple hours that seemed to slip away faster and faster. I finally ended with something that somewhat resembled a fruit bowl. I was satisfied with my work, and showed it to Levi, who had also finished.

  
We exchanged our "pieces" and admired each other's work. Levi was a slow writer. He had only gotten about five pages pages written in about 3 hours. It was still a complete story, it was just short, sweet, and to the point. It was very saucy, and frankly quite vulgar, even for me.

  
Levi seemed genuinely pleased with my painting. I didn't understand it, but I was glad I had made him so happy.

  
"It's beautiful," Levi said as I stood up and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind, "we should hang it up."

  
"Is that sarcasm?"

  
"Not at all, I love it. I really do," he looked up at me, “everything you make is so wonderful,” he had returned his eyes lovingly to my painting.

  
It took him several tries and many more long stands of swears to get my mediocre painting on the wall. He had chosen the wall that we had just recently painted. I cringed when I looked at it, but Levi kept telling me that it was beautiful and to accept my greatness.

  
Levi went to bed not long after it wasn't that late but he claimed to be tired. I still wanted to get at least a little bit of work done, so I stayed up writing. The next morning I was awakened by the sound of someone falling in the kitchen. I started awake and jumped up to see a very tired looking Levi sprawled on the floor.

  
He looked at me and cringed, "Sorry," he whispered, "I was going to make breakfast to surprise you."

  
I helped him up and smiled before walking back to the couch and pretending to fall back asleep. I could almost feel Levi rolling his eyes at me. While I had time to pretend to be asleep, I started to think. Eventually, (of course) my thoughts led to Levi. He wasn't usually a very clumsy person, so it was odd that he was obviously having trouble controlling his limbs today. Even without looking I could tell he was stumbling around the kitchen.

  
I guess my efforts succeeded because I was soon woken up by Levi kneeling, ungracefully, by the couch.

  
"What's going on with you?" I asked sitting up, "you are usually so suave."

  
"I don’t know," Levi responded. He seemed a little off, but nothing that couldn't have been blamed on a bad night's rest, "are you going to have breakfast?"

  
"Of course," I replied and took a plate.

  
Levi and I still kept to our regular routine. I would go to class, we would both sit for the hour between our classes then we would separate, and eventually end up back home after work. Everything about it felt so right. It was nice to have a routine.  
It was stable. I had become all too familiar with craving stability, it was nice to have it for once. I loved having a routine, and I loved knowing that everyone I knew was going to be there the next day and everything was going to be the same. I loved not being uncertain about the most basic things in my life.

  
I had never had that before.

  
The next months passed quickly. Everyone had settled into a routine. Levi's friends would come over every Saturday, and we would go to one of their houses on Fridays. They always had some sort of party or gathering, and on Friday nights that was the ideal place for us to be. Neither Levi or I were huge party goers, but Levi would go because he liked to hang out with his friends and I would tag along because I liked to hang out with Levi. They were never huge, most of the time it was just us and a couple more of their friends, so I guess for the most part it was tolerable.

  
Other than those get togethers we didn't go out very much. Not that I minded spending alone time with my lover. In the last few months of school I was promoted at my job in the publishing agency. This didn't really mean much more than after school ended I would have to stay at the office longer, which Levi protested against, but I knew it was just one step closer to being able to work at home.

  
Levi had begun to paint more professionally, and had offers from different people all around the country to put his art in museums. He declined all of these offers, and continued to just sell privately. He always told me it was because he thought museums were for dead artists and putting his artwork up for display like that he was tempting fate. I told him the universe thought he was mental for not agreeing to the offers because they kept coming. We agreed to disagree.

  
Spring came so quickly, and brought with it an entirely new change. The school Levi and I attended was a two year vocational university. We would graduate in the spring, and I was more than ready to have more time off.

  
"Do you think they have a smaller one?" Levi asked as he spun around in a gown that was painfully too large. He had to hold up the bottom hem to walk without falling.

  
Our school may not have been big, but they still had a small graduation ceremony, "No," I replied, "I would guess that if they did, they gave them to the girls."

  
"First off,” he started, “fuck you, and second," he said looking down at himself, "I'm boned if I have to do any walking," he put on the cap, which was just slightly too big. He looked like a child wearing a parent's work uniform. His hands were covered and the fabric of the gown pooled around his feet. Levi had been in a mood all morning. He should have been excited. I was. It was hard to contain, we were moving on, we were growing up and it was exciting. Levi, however, had seemed fixed on scowling all morning at nothing in particular. 

  
"You'll be fine," I replied. He was wearing somewhat nice clothes underneath, but you could still tell that neither of us had really dressed up for the occasion. My dad couldn't make it to the ceremony. I hadn't thought to tell him until it was too late for him to get any time off work. I had been upset about it, but brushed it of after I realized how ridiculous I was being. It was really no bight deal, I would be able to see him again another time. 

  
I heard an excited squeal from behind us, and turned around just in time to see Hanji tacking Levi.

  
"Fuck you shit glasses," he growled at the brunette who was perkily sitting on top of him, "get off me," he tried unsuccessfully several times to push her off, before giving up. He sighed and extended his limbs out to the sides. Hanji still didn't move, and sat gleefully on top of him.

  
"Hey," I heard Nabana call out, "how's it going?"

  
"Um," I replied looking at Levi, " _I'm_ doing well, how about you?"

  
"Pretty shitty," Levi said in a strained voice. She was really heavy.

  
"Hanji," Erwin butted in, "get off him."

  
Hanji hummed a characteristically overly perky tune, "Nope," she said which caused a groan from Levi.

  
"Anyway," I said looking at the rest of the group, "it's really nice of you guys to come, you really didn’t have to."

  
"But we want to," Petra said smiling at me, "we are all really proud of both of you."

  
She was sickeningly sweet.

  
"Getting real sappy there, Petra, I don't know if I can handle it," Levi said sarcastically.

  
"Lighten up," I replied, I made it blatantly obvious that I was scolding him, "I think it's sweet."

  
Levi grumbled and returned to his unhappy silence.

  
"All students to the auditorium," a blared over the intercom. I didn't even know we had one of those until the voice startled me. Hanji hopped off him. 

  
"We have to go," Levi said directing his comment at me, "Help me up?" He reached his hands up towards me. I obliged and pulled him to his feet. He swayed slightly once he was on his feet again, but quickly caught his balance. He stretched his hands up above his head and rubbed his stomach where Hanji had perched herself, "Jesus, Hanji, how much do you fucking weigh?"

  
"A lot," she giggled before standing up and walking over to the rest of the group.

  
"Alright," Petra said clapping her hands, "we should probably get going."

  
"Okay," I replied, "see you in a few."

  
"I can't wait."

  
"Salty much?" I asked lightly punching Levi in the arm. He was scowling at nothing in particular.

  
"My head hurts now and I want to go home, so if you expect me to be an angel, you obviously don't know me very well," Levi said bitterly.

  
"Please tell me you're not getting those headaches again?" They hadn’t affected him at all for the past few months, and like hell I was going to sit back and watch him go through all of that again.

  
"I don't know," he replied pressing his fingers gingerly to his forehead as we walked towards the auditorium, "they don't usually come back this quickly."

  
"If they come back again I'm taking you to the doctor," I declared firmly.

  
"No," he said equally as firm, "there is nothing wrong with me, so I'm not going to waste my money for some fucking quack to tell me that there's nothing wrong with me," he looked genuinely angry.

  
“Jesus,” I muttered, “moody much?”

  
He sighed and looked at me as we walked, “I know, I’m sorry I’m being shitty and it has nothing to do with you.”

  
“It's fine, I’m just worried about you.”

  
We reached the auditorium we separated. Our seats had been labeled, we were in alphabetical order. I was in sort of the center of the group, but Levi was almost the first one.

  
The ceremony was quick and rather painless. There were no speeches or really anything at all that would have wasted time. They called all our names one by one and we walked up on stage to receive our diplomas. I was surprised Levi didn't trip going up the stairs onto the stage, he’d been so clumsy lately.

  
When it was all said and done we all threw out caps up in the air, then collected them, and then returned our gowns.   
I met up with Petra and the rest of the gang soon after the ceremony ended. Levi was nowhere to be seen. I sighed and went looking for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had gone home already.

  
I eventually found him sitting against the wall in one of the hallways that shot off from the auditorium. He had his hands clasped over his ears, rubbing his temples. His eyes were squeezed shut and I could almost feel how much pain he was in.

  
"Are you okay?" I asked slowly walking up to him. I knew it was a stupid question, but I was of freaked out, and it was all I could think to say.

  
He shook his head and pressed his hands harder to the sides of his head, "No," he had to force the word out.

  
"Okay," I replied, trying to gently pick him up off the floor, "I'll take you home."

  
He tried to bat my hand away when I reached for him, but eventually allowed me to help him up. He was able to stand and walk with just a little bit of help from me. I held one of his hands and he pressed the other to his forehead.

  
I walked quickly and Levi stumbled along behind me. I half dragged him through the hallways towards the exit. I had brought my car, just in case we wanted to go somewhere a afterwards and I had thought that it was probably a stupid idea, but now that this was happening, it seemed like a great choice.

  
"Congratulations!" Hanji shouted from across the hallway.

  
"Oh," I said stopping and turning to face Hanji, "thanks!"

  
"We were gonna go somewhere tonight," Erwin started, "you guys are more than welcome to join us."

  
"Uh," I stuttered looking at Levi, "I have to take him home."

  
Levi stayed silent, and when they looked at the state he was in they understood.

  
"Okay," Hanji said somewhat disappointedly.

  
"Eren," Levi said, "you should go I can get home just fine."

  
"Yeah right," I scoffed, "see you guys later," I directed the second half of my comment at the group, before starting to drag Levi along behind me again.

  
When we reached my car Levi chose to lay down in the backseat. It wasn't a long drive to our apartment, but Levi still fell asleep.

  
I tried not to wake him up when we arrived. I was unsuccessful, as soon as he woke up pain flashed across his features before he tried to mask it with a blank expression. He wasn’t entirely successful. He looked like he was trying to feel everything at once. I helped him out of the car and into the place we called home. He walked directly into the bedroom and crawled under to covers. He curled up and put his hands on the side of his head.

  
"Eren," he said, almost inaudibly, "you should join them, I'll be fine."

  
His offer was tempting. I was finally 21, so any drinking I did would be legal. Sobriety became so much harder when there were no legal consequences for breaking your promise.

  
"Well," I said from the bedroom doorway, "that depends."

  
"On what?"

  
"Would it make me a bad boyfriend if I left you here?"

  
"No of course not," Levi replied, "just because I'm not feeling well, doesn't mean you can't have a good time. I've been feeling shitty all day anyway, you should go have a good time."

  
I stood there contemplating for a while longer before speaking, "Okay, I'm going to go with them, but if you need anything at all, call me and I’ll be back before you can even hang up the phone."

  
"Okay," Levi responded quietly, "have fun."

  
"I will,” I said as I walked towards our bed, “I love you," I said as I kissed his forehead.

  
"I love you too," I heard Levi's small hollow voice call to me.

  
Levi lied.

  
I was a shitty person.

  
I couldn’t even think about drinking that night. I sat with our group of friends, worrying that I had abandoned the one person I loved when he needed me.

  
As per usual, the gang had ended up in a bar, not too far from Levi's and my apartment. It was loud and we had to shout at one another to hear anything. I didn't mind so much. It was fun to be with everyone, laughing and having a good time. I felt the familiar buzz of my phone in my pocket, I dug it out quickly, fearing it would be Levi calling to tell me he needed to go to the hospital. It wasn't. I saw the image of my dad pop up on my phone screen and I let go of a sigh of relief.   
I pressed the green button to answer the call, "Hello?" I still phrased it like a question, despite knowing exactly who was on the other end. 

  
"Eren?" I heard the farmiliar rumble of my dad's voice, "are you at a concert or something? It's so loud."

  
"Ah, no," I said looking at my friends and gesturing to the phone before excusing myself, "give me a second" I pushed my way out the back exit before trying to talk again, "Better?"

  
"Much," he confirmed, "Where are you, may I ask?"

  
"Just out and about with some friends," it was true enough, "we decided to go to a bar," I could practically hear the way he cocked his eyebrow at me. There was a pause and I realized what I had just said, "No, no it wasn't like that we were just eating, well I was just eating-"

  
He cut me off with his signature, I-caught-you-doing-something-you-shouldn't-be laugh, "Don't laugh at me," I replied, "We were just having some fun, that's all." I kicked a rock off the concrete steps and heard it scrape across street below.

  
"Okay, okay," he assured me still recovering from his outburst, "I called to tell you congratulations. I'm sorry I couldn't come to the ceremony, but I knew about it so last minute-"

  
"Don't worry about it dad, its fine," I had been a little hurt when he had first broke the news to me, but he explained that he had no idea and by the time I'd told him about it all the flights headed out this direction were full.

  
"Anyway, congratulations," his tone dropped a little, "I'm so proud of you. You've been doing so well."

  
"Thank you," praise felt good, "How've you been? It feels like I haven't talked to you in ages."

  
"It has been a while, hasn't it," he laughed at me "I've been doing well, working a lot, sick people don't seem to rest do they?"

  
He brought my mind spiraling back to Levi in more ways than one, "No, they don't. By the way, you wouldn't happen to know anything about reoccurring headaches, would you?"

  
"Are you having issues, Eren?"

  
"No, no, I'm fine, it's just that my," I paused I still hadn't formally told him that I had been seeing anyone, I had hinted at it subtly, but never committed to actually telling him, "friend had been getting these sort of severe headaches every so often, and he keeps telling me that it's a normal thing for him. He says that they'll start and be consistent for a few weeks then go away for a few months, but he says they always come back. I'm just a little worried is all, and I was wondering if you knew anything about that," "a little worried" didn't even begin to cover it.

  
I could hear him sigh on the other side of the phone, "How severe are they?"

  
"Debilitatingly."

  
"Hm," he exhaled, "I would definitely see someone about it if it's that bad."

  
"That's what I told him, but he keeps telling me that he's fine. He has a few years of medical experience and keeps telling me that there's nothing wrong with him."

  
"Where did he work?" I knew the fact that he had worked as a physician would interest him more than Levi's symptoms.

  
"He was an EMT for a long time," I said, "I don't remember where."

  
Dad let out another sigh, "Well he would know about all that, if he was an emergency responder. I guess I would trust him if he's telling you it's nothing to worry about."

  
"But what could be causing them?" I ask.

  
"You could ask him, he might know, but," he paused, "it could be he's just getting migraines, or stress, depression, anxiety. Basically everything ca be describe as having headaches as a symptom."

  
That received me a little, "Okay."

  
I let the conversation fall flat for a few moments, "Anyway, how are you, kiddo? I didn't get the chance to ask."

  
"I've been good," I breathed out, "keeping busy. I'm getting more and more things published, I've been editing a lot. I told you about the new job," I said hoping that would distract him from the fact that I obviously wanted to tell him something else.

  
"I've noticed, I keep an eye out for your name all the time," he replied, "I've read a couple of your works, I didn't know you were such a talented writer before."

  
"I didn't really know either."

  
There was another deafening silence and my heart started to pick up as I gathered the courage to tell him about Levi, "Anything else new?" He asked carefully, trying to pull the anxiety out of my answer.

  
"I," I paused, "I've been seeing someone."

  
"Really?," he sounded impressed, "Who's the lucky lady? How long have you been together?"

  
"We've been together for about two years now," I said trying to avoid the first question.

  
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? I'd love to meet her. Anyone that puts up with my son deserves a gold medal."

  
"Dad," I said, mocking hurt at his last statement. I took a few half seconds to compose myself. It was over the phone, the worst he could do was hang up on me, "I didn't tell you right away, because I didn't know if you would like him or not," I tried to put extra emphasis on the pronoun.

  
"Him?" He repeated back almost immediately.

  
"Yeah," there were only a few moments of silence but it made me think about how much I wanted to throw myself into the street, "boyfriend."

  
"What's his name? When can I come meet him?"

  
I let out a breath I' hadn't realized I was holding with a laugh, "Levi," I said letting the name roll off my tongue, "It would be awesome if you could come out for a visit."

  
"I'll have to text you the details of when I could come out," dad started, he was busy and I knew I would have to fit my schedule around when he could come out.

  
"That would be great, actually," I replied still smiling.

  
Dad let out another sigh, "Well, it was nice talking to you, kid, but I don't want to keep you from your friends too long."

  
I laughed again, "Okay, bye, dad. Love you."

  
"Love you too, Eren."

  
I sighed as soon as I had hung up, that had gone much better than I had expected. I dragged myself back inside.   
As I drove everyone home from the afternoon of bar hopping, I drove recklessly in an attempt to get home faster than humanly possible. I made it home by midnight and found Levi still up. He was drinking tea and painting. He looked so picturesque. Like I had just burst into a photograph that should have been pinned up in a diner somewhere on the outskirts of town.

  
He jumped when I burst so suddenly into the room, "Hello," he said as though he didn't recognize me.

  
"Hi," I said breathlessly, "are you feeling better?"

  
"Yes," he replied returning his attention to his painting, "I just needed to rest."

  
I sighed in relief, "Thank god," I had been so worried that his headaches had returned, "I was worried."

  
He smiled at my last remark, "Then you would be the first."

  
I smiled sadly in return and walked towards him to observe his painting. He made skilled strokes, as always, but I couldn’t focus on the flowers that were blossoming on the canvas. I stood behind Levi and wrapped my arms around his waist, and nestling my chin on his shoulder. He leaned into my body, and I could feel his heartbeat steady beneath his shirt.

  
"My dad called me tonight," I lead off.

  
"All good things, I hope," he said, putting down his brush, turning his full attention to me.

  
"Yes, he said he was proud of me for graduating."

  
"We're all so proud of you, Eren," he turned around to face me and I readjusted my grip on him.

  
"I told him about us."

  
"You hadn't already?" He cocked his head to the side.

  
"No, I was honestly too scared, but he wants to come out to visit us, he said, and I quote here, 'Anyone who puts up with my son deserves a gold medal,' so if that's any indicator, I'd say he likes you already."

  
Levi laughed, the kind that made him wrinkle up his nose and crease the corners of his eyes.He always told me it was his "ugly" smile, but anything that genuine couldn't have been ugly, "You're my gold medal."

  
"Fuck, that was smooth," I said leaning down to kiss him, "I'll keep you posted on when he's coming out, yeah?"

  
"Sounds lovely," he said. He patted my but twice before he pushed me away lightly, "now let me work."


	17. Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurray for more Grisha, it's about damn time if you ask me. Thank you all for leaving such nice comments I love reading them! Enjoy the chapter, it's a bit of a short one.

My dad had given us three weeks notice. And both Levi and I were buzzing with excitement. I was picking him up from the airport and Levi was staying home to cook. My dad would be staying in our apartment. I didn't mind, it was cheaper than him renting out a hotel room for a week. I was driving along the highway trying to stay focused. I had never really introduced him to anyone, and I was practically vomiting with nervousness.

I pulled into the airport parking lot and waited for a confirmation text from my dad about where he was, so I could pick him up. A buzzing in the cup holder beside me sent a lurch through my stomach. I was almost relieved when it ended up being from Levi. I opened it:

  
_On a scale from "Hello, Sir" to "Your son calls me daddy too" how good should I look tonight?_

  
I snorted, leave it to Levi to make it weird.

  
_If you could stick below the "My son's boyfriend is making me question my sexuality" line I think we'll be okay._

  
_Noted_.

  
I smiled and waited for the next text from Levi. It never came, but I got a message from my dad, telling me where he was waiting. I turned the car back on and pulled out of the parking lot. I steered myself to the arrivals pick up and saw a familiar figure waiting on the sidewalk.

  
I parked next to him and got out of the car, "Hey."

  
"Howdy, stranger," he replied with a smile. He looked older as I pulled him into a quick hug. I popped the trunk and he heaved his suitcase up before I could help him.

  
Once we were both settled in the car, I took off. I always drove so much more carefully when he was in the car with me. We were on the highway soon enough, making small talk and telling jokes was easy enough.

  
My phone buzzed in the cup holder, I knew I couldn't check it, my dad went to pick it up. I prayed with every fiber of my being that Levi hadn't sent me something too incriminating. After a quick once over my dad announced, "Levi says, 'Dinner is ready, when do you think you'll be home?'"

  
"Tell him, 'Thank you,' and 'We should be home in about ten minutes.'"

  
My dad was a painfully slow texter, and I prayed he wasn't going to read a few messages above. He gave no indication that he had seen our previous messages as he returned my phone to the cup holder.

  
We arrived at the apartment complex sooner than I thought I could have. I unlocked the door and Levi stuck his head around the corner from the hallway that led to the bathroom and the bedroom.

  
"Hello," he greeted more to my dad than me. He took long quick strides over to us.

  
"Levi?" My dad questioned holding his hand out.

  
"Yes," Levi took his hand and shook it, "Mr. Jäger?"

  
"Please," he said holding his hand up, "Grisha."

  
"Grisha," Levi repeated his name with a nod, "nice to meet you."

  
"You as well," he echoed with a nod, "Eren told me you made dinner."

  
I silently thanked him for not mentioning the fact that he had gone through our text messages.

  
"Ah" Levi said taken off guard, "yes," he was already on his feet and walking towards the kitchen, "just need to finish up a few things."

  
It was a one bedroom apartment, if it hadn't been I would have eased the awkwardness of Levi's hasty exit with the excuse of helping my dad find his room. We stood in silence for a few moments before shedding our jackets.

  
"This is a nice place," Dad said taking the opportunity to look around more thoroughly, "I don't think I've visited you here yet."

  
"No," I replied. Levi had cleaned every surface of the apartment until you could see your own reflection in it. I swore even the fabric of our couch shone with cleanliness, "you haven't, would you like me to show you around."

  
"Well," he said looking around once more before meeting my gaze, "I can see the dining room, living room, and what I assume is the kitchen right now."

  
I couldn't suppress the urge to roll my eyes at him.

  
He caught my glance and returned it with a smile, "But if you'd like to show me the rest I'd be more than happy to oblige."

  
I took the opportunity to show him the bathroom and master bedroom in a very lack luster tour. He settled down on the couch, seemingly content with pretending he was at home for a few moments. I took the opportunity to slip into the kitchen. Levi was fussing with the food, trying to make it as presentable as possible. He kept rearranging the side dishes and garlands, repeating each motion twice before he seemed satisfied.

  
"It looks fine," I whispered in his ear when I got close enough to speak comfortably.

  
Levi jumped slightly but settled back into the had I had placed on his lower back. He wasn't good when he got nervous, "I just want him to like me."

  
"He already does," Levi arched an eyebrow at me, "trust me, if he didn't like you, he would have made it obvious by now."

  
"That doesn't make me feel any better, if that's what you were trying to do just there."

  
I sighed, rubbing small circles into his spine, "If you want me to be completely honest, I could care less if he likes you or not, it won't change the way I think of you."

  
"But I care what he thinks about me, and if I fuck this up," he trailed off.

  
I allowed him to settle before kissing his cheek, "I'll help you bring this all out."

  
I relinquished my hold on him to set the table.

  
"So, Levi," Levi jumped at his name being uttered before directing his full attention at my dad, "Eren tells me you're an artist?" My dad had always had a knack for taking statements and turning them into open ended questions. I would have argued it was one of his favorite things to do when meeting new people. He liked to watch them squirm and try to come up with a response for a question that hadn't been asked.

  
Levi didn't fare much better than anyone else, "Oh, yes," he wiped his mouth before knotting his hands into the napkin in his lap, "I mostly do commissions, it's the most profitable, but I get to do original work sometimes."

  
"Do you like that balance?"

  
"Between original and commission?" He questioned unsure before launching quickly into an explanation to try and cover his tracks, "I would say so. Most of the commission work I do is portraits which is something I like to do anyway. People are one of my favorite subjects, but," he inhaled sharply, breathing for the first time since he started talking. I silently mourned for his pride, "I would like to do more creativity driven projects in the future. There's not much of an audience for unique works, at least for living artists," he laughed weakly as he finished his thoughts.

  
"Interesting," was the only reply he got before Dad dived back into his food.

  
Levi shot me a look, half pleading for reassurance, half hoping something would fall from the sky and crush him. I offered him a sorry excuse for a smile and a shrug.

  
I had never introduced any of my family to any romantic partners I'd had in the past. I hadn't really had anything serious enough to bring to anyone's attention. I wish I could have told Levi that my dad was just being hard on him, or that he was like this with everyone, but the fact of not knowing was driving me crazy. Despite what I'd said, I really did care what my dad thought of Levi. They were the two most important people in my life, and if they didn't get along, I had no idea what I would do to please them both. Dinner passed with what could have passed as an interrogation session, and to the displeasure of Levi, dad offered to help us with the dishes.

  
It was about halfway into part two of Levi's personal hell, when the question came up, "What about your family?"

  
I could see his face contort. He was trying to decide wether lying or being completely honest would sway things in his favor, "I," he started then stopped, "I haven't seen much of my family for a long time, I have a dad and a sister somewhere," he laughed nervously.

  
"Do you have a mom?"

  
"Yeah," he said, "yeah I do, she's just convinced she doesn't have a son."

  
I cold see my dad rear back out of sheer reaction, "I'm so sorry," he paused, "If you don't mind me prying, it doesn't have anything to do with," he trailed off and gestured between us two, "any of this, does it?"

  
Levi's face lit up, "Oh no, god no, nothing like that, she just has early onset dementia. she doesn't remember a lot."

 

"A lot being you?" 

 

"Ah, yes," Levi mumbled trying to look emersed in his work. I swear he was going to break the plat if he held it any tighter.

  
The conversation dropped to small talk after that.

  
"Would you like some coffee, tea, anything?" Levi asked as he dried his hands.

  
"I think I'm okay for right now," my dad replied, "I would like to take a walk around the neighborhood though. I've been sitting all day."

  
"I can take you around if you'd like," I piped up, "we can catch up."

  
"I would like that," dad smiled at me.

  
"Okay," I said stepping out of the kitchen, "sounds like a plan." I was sure Levi would be grateful for the few minutes to get his thoughts in order. He mumbled something about setting up the fold out bed while we walked out the door.

  
My dad didn't say a word until we were on a path that I had found near my apartment complex. It was about a two kilometer loop. Easy enough, but scenic. I took walks out here to clear my mind most of the time, "How have you been?"

  
It seemed like an easy enough question, but it was always one I avoided, "I've been good."

 

"Yeah?"

  
"Yeah."

  
The silence between us was tangible. When had I become so awkward?

  
I took a deep breath and stepped off the edge, "So," I had to take another breath, "what do you think of Levi?"

  
"He seemed nice enough."

  
"Is that it?"

  
"What more do you want me to say?" He was pushing my buttons, I knew, but I was in no mood to play along tonight. I had waited this long to figure out what he thought.

  
"I want to know what you thought about him, did you like him? Is he up to snuff? I don't know, you've probably come up with twenty different psychoanalysis' for him, so what do you think?"

  
"So you want brutal honesty?"

  
"Yes," I sounded exasperated even to myself.

  
Dad didn't say anything for a while. Just walked silently with me beside him, waiting, "I know he's the nervous type, not the quickest on his feet, but he get's by just fine. Honest to a fault, probably overly self critical, but all artists are like that it seems," he trailed off again, rubbing his chin, "But he is a great cook. And he obviously loves you more than the world. I don't think I could have picked a better for person for you myself. You've got quite the catch there."

  
"So you like him?"

  
"Yes," he said straightening out his view, "do you like him?"

  
I scoffed, "Well, obviously."

  
"You're right, it is obvious. I don't know how you managed to keep it from me for this long."

  
I let out a sigh of relief. It was the best news I'd heard in a long time, "I'm glad."

  
We walked in a comfortable silence. My mind was reeling. There was nothing going against me, nothing to hide from anyone. The two people that mattered most to me could get along.

  
"My old man legs are getting tired," My dad broke my thoughts, "should we turn around?"

  
"Sure." I stopped and turned on my heel.

  
It was small talk all the way back, catching up. There was a surprising amount to catch up on. I had never guessed that I would miss him as much as I did.

  
Levi had already set up the fold out bed by the time we reached home again. I hadn't realized that the couch could double as a bed, Levi was the one that pointed it out to me just a few days after moving in with together. The shower was going. I didn't think we had been out that long, but checking the clock, we had been out for a little over a half hour.

  
"I think, I might just go to bed," Dad said sighing and stretching his arms over his head.

  
"Goodnight," I shot at him before exiting to the bedroom.

  
Levi was just getting out of the shower by the time I passed, I swapped him places for the bathroom, and he excused himself to go get dressed.

  
I met up with him in our bedroom after I had cleaned up. He was seated so peacefully on the edge of the bed, trying to dry off his hair. He hated going to bed with it wet, he always insisted that he would get sick someday from it. If I could have captured this moment in a bottle I would have. Here we were comfortably occupying our space. It was our space. It was a space we had created for ourselves, from the ground up. Everything I was looking at we had created together. Everything I was looking at was ours. Levi's head snapped towards me at the sound of the door closing. He tilted his head and smiled at me. I returned his gaze and dressed myself. We didn't need any words, there was nothing to say, nothing important enough to break this moment.

  
Levi slipped his legs beneath the duvet and I was quick to follow him. He pulled me against his chest, "How was the walk?" His voice was just barely a whisper. Intimate, just for me.

  
"Good, really good," I adjusted myself against him, "My dad really likes you."

  
I heard Levi let out a sigh of contentment, "I'm glad."

  
"Me too."

  
"Goodnight."

  
"Goodnight."

  
The spell had been interrupted, but blanketed itself back over us once the silence returned. All I could feel was the heat of Levi's body against mine, the patternless trails that his fingers were leaving as they grazed over my back, and his heartbeat against mine. Not in sync, but beating in time with one another, where one left off the other picked up, perfectly opposite one another. Filling any space left between us with the reverberations of life. 


	18. Skipper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hey, hey. Sorry it's taken so long to update, we had finals and graduation and then I've been working three jobs. May have gotten in a little bit over my head. But here I am again. Anywho, this was the original story that I wanted to write when had this idea, but I needed more backstory to make it believable, and I had no ideas on how to stitch the backstory and the more plot based portions together; naturally this chapter features a major time skip, several years are skipped over just because I didn't want to write so much filled without getting to the actual plot of the story I wanted to write. Thank you for reading this far in and I hope you can enjoy the rest of the story. It is also at this point that I would like to point out some of the tags for this story, it never get incredibly graphic, but it does talk seriously about illnesses and death. If that is something that might upset you I would not advise reading the rest of the story to come. Thank you! Enjoy the chapter.

Levi and I had been together for almost two years, yet every time he touched me it took my breath away. Every time he called me beautiful I still believed it, and when we whispered our soft, early morning “I love you”s it still felt like the first time he had confessed to me. I had memorized all his quirks, and all the creases, scars, and indents on his body, but every part of him renewed itself everytime I saw it. It seemed like everything I was had been suspended in time from the moment I saw him. I was older but I didn't feel it. I felt forever nineteen when I was near Levi. I would be be forever caught up in his presence, and if that was enough to keep me young forever, then it’s all I could ask for.

  
____________

  
Over the next few years I had started working my way up the ranks in the small publishing company that employed me. I had been an editor for a while, but since my submitting a few of my stories, I had been set up to be a full time author. It was my dream job, but the pay raise only made everything better.

  
I had been saving up the extra money I made for something special. Even before I was even covering the rent and groceries with my paycheck I always put away just a few dollars. To me, this was more important in the long run than anything else.

  
A ring.

  
I didn't have all the money at the time, but that made the idea even more precious to me. I was twenty-seven, Levi was twenty-nine. I swear not a day passed that I didn’t want to ask him to marry me. He had changed, but I had too, we changed together. There was no one else that I would ever want to spend the rest of my life with. I loved him with all of my heart, and I could tell he felt the same for me. I had memorized every part of him, and everything he was became a part of me. We had melded together in a beautiful alloy and I could no longer distinguish between me and him. I could no longer find a part of myself that didn’t belong wholeheartedly to him. I had given Levi everything that I was, and he had done the same for me.

  
Time spent apart on business trips was torture. I felt like I was missing the better half of myself when he was gone. I couldn’t begin to imagine my life without him. Everything about him had become such an integral part of my life. I had always guessed if what I was feeling was real, and I guess it was because even after all these years, I could still look back to when I had first fallen in love with him, and feel exactly the same. I was in love.

  
__________

  
Levi was scheduled to leave on a trip soon, a gallery in Tuscany had been interested in having him paint for them. They had promised a house for both of us and a large sum of money. I could still work from abroad, I had talked to my bosses about it. Levi and I had discussed. This trip was just to make sure interests were settled on both sides, but Levi and I were all in. He had packed his things, and they were loaded in the trunk of my car. I always drove him to the airport for his trips, not like anyone else would, but I like having a last bit of alone time with him before he left. We fell asleep like always, in each other's arms.

  
Once the sun rose, something was off. Levi shoved himself away from me when he awoke. There was no malice behind his actions, it was more of an autonomous reaction, he pushed me away like I was burning him. He immediately pulled himself out from under the blankets, and stripped of his shirt.

  
"Levi," I was able to say groggily I looked up at him, the light barely streaming through the curtains. I could just make out his outline in the dark, "what's wrong?" The reality of what was happening dawned on me I jumped up and approached him.  
He didn't respond, "Levi, what's wrong?"

  
He had dropped his head into his hands and was leaning up against the wall, "Hot," he spoke in a choked voice.

  
I reached out and touched him, his skin was a normal temperature, but he looked so flushed. He jerked back away from me, "Don't touch me," he said in the same voice as before. It sounded like he was struggling to breath, “please.”

 

He was panting head in his hands. his eyes didn't move from the floor. I stood and watched, waited. I had no idea what was going on. He breathed deeply, taking long breaths with longer exhales before he started to sway on his feet. A rhythmic moving back and fourth. He raised his head up to meet my eyes and they were flicking back and fourth. Trying to focus. 

His breathing slowed.We both stood there for several more seconds before I was able to find my voice, “Are you okay?"

  
“I don’t know,” he said bracing himself against the wall, “I just got really dizzy,” I put my arms out and he grabbed onto them, trying to hold himself upright, I led him down until he was sitting on the floor. He looked like he was about to throw up, he couldn't focus, “Fuck,” he suddenly whispered, his head slipping down.

  
“What?” I asked. I was still holding onto him, “What’s wrong.”

  
“I can’t see,” he laughed. His words ran together. He sounded drunk, still swaying even when he was seated. 

  
“What do you mean you can’t see?” I said trying to get him to look over at me.

  
“I don’t know,” he paused, he was having trouble speaking now, his mouth didn’t look like he was controlling it at all, “I can see you, but every time I try to look at you, everything goes black.”

  
“Shit,” I whispered, “What, what do I do?”

  
He wasn’t able to answer my question in time. His whole body went rigid. I pulled him away from the wall and tried to get him to respond to me. Nothing I did helped, and by the time the convulsions started and I realized what was happening it was too late for me to do anything. I frantically moved everything away from him and tried to keep him away from the wall. I was terrified. Once the convulsions started to ebb down I rolled him onto his side and tried to make it easier for him to breathe.

  
“It’s okay,” I said, stroking his hair and trying to keep him from panicking. I was probably trying to keep myself from panicking with that sentiment more I was trying to be reassuring, I wasn't even sure if he could hear me, “You’re going to be okay.”

  
The convulsions finally stopped all together and he lost consciousness. I grabbed a blanket and wrapped him in it. I hoped that if there were any aftershocks that would keep him safe. I picked him up and carefully sprinted to my car; I laid him down in the back seat and adjusted him so nothing was going to move while I drove. I wanted to be as careful as humanly possible. I closed the back seat door gently and sprinted around to the drivers side, jumped into the front seat of the car, and drove. I had no idea where to go, and was now wondering why I had started driving and hadn't just called an ambulance. There was no point in trying to correct my mistake now, I was already on the highway. I glanced at every exit sign and found one that advertised medical care.

  
I was at least forty miles over the speed limit at any given moment during that drive, and as I pulled off the highway and into the city I Was aware how reckless I was being. Like the idea of recklessness would stop me.

  
I pulled into what might have been an ambulance lane, in front of the emergency room doors, and carried Levi out of the car and through the sliding glass doors.

  
The next few minutes were fuzzy, it felt like everything started happening at once. I remembered carrying Levi, who was still wrapped in the blanket, through the emergency room doors. It felt like a group of doctors pounced on him almost immediately. I tried to follow them as they pulled him from my arms and raced towards the doors that separated the rest of the hospital from the waiting room, but a smartly dressed woman grabbed my arm and led me into a small, cozy room.  
I sat for a few minutes in silence, trying to get all of my thoughts in order.

  
"Hello, Mr.," she trailed off, waiting for me to answer, my mind was so full of images of Levi that her words didn't register with me right away.

  
Finally snapping out of my trance I said, "Sorry, what?"

  
"What's your name?" She asked. She honestly could have come up with hundreds of excuses to be annoyed with me but she wasn’t. If anything she was trying to console me.

  
"Eren Jaeger," I replied still in shock.

  
"And the person you just brought in, what was their name?" She had such a pleasant tone of voice.

  
"Levi," I said not even pausing to think that they would ask for his full name.

  
"And his surname?"

  
"Ah," I said feeling slightly embarrassed, "Ackerman," My vision started to blur, and I felt the farmiliar sting of tears at the corners of my eyes. The impact of the events that had just transpired hit me. Hard. I was relieved that it had happened when it did, I was there and able to help him, but what did it mean for his health? Would he be okay? I wasn’t going to risk losing someone so dear to me. Not now, not ever.

 

The woman that was questioning me came and knelt down by where I was sitting, "It's okay, he's going to be fine, we just have to know some vital information so we can fill out the paperwork," they had taught her how to do her job well, I had to admit.

  
"Okay," I said clearing my eyes of the water that had started to pour uncontrollably from them, "okay, what do you need to know?"

  
"Are you sure you're ready to answer questions? If you need some time to think, it’s okay I can wait."

  
"No, I'll be fine," I said, trying to regain some composure.

  
"Okay, are you sure?"

  
"Yeah," I said, fully collecting myself, "what do you need to know?"

  
"Can you describe the incident that led you here?" She had such a soft voice. I was immediately reminded of my mom, and when I looked at her face, she almost could have been my mother. Her skin was too light, and her nose and eyes weren’t the same, but other than that she could have been her doppelgänger. It reminded me of what Levi had said about reincarnation so long go. That had stuck with me. Through all these years I could still remember some of the things he'd told me when we were still strangers to one another. The woman was most likely older than me, which wouldn’t have made sense if I understood reincarnation at all, but it still put me at ease.

  
I described the incident in all the detail that I could remember. I told her about the headaches, everything I could possibly think of. I stopped and gulped in air after I had finished, I realized that I had just said everything in one breath. I could feel tears stinging at the comers of my eyes again.

  
"Do you have any idea how long the episode lasted?"

  
"I don't know, a minute? Two?"

  
"Thank you," she said, jotting down what had happened on her clipboard, "I just have a couple more questions to ask you about the patients personal heath. Are you in a situation to answer those?"

  
"Yes," I said I couldn't even look up at her, "I can answer anything you need to know."

  
"What is your relationship with the patient?"

  
"I'm his husband," I replied, I didn’t know what had possessed me to call him that, I didn’t even have a ring, but it felt right, and had just slipped out.

  
"Alright," she continued unfazed by my previous answer, "Has he ever had an episode like this before?"

 

"No," I said, "never before. This is the first."

 

"Does he have a history of drug use or abuse?"

 

This question caught me off guard, "No," I said, it suddenly felt like I needed to defend him, "he can't even really bring himself to drink," I had raised my voice unnecessarily.

  
"It's okay," she said, calming me with her voice, as if I were a child, “I didn’t mean to imply that he did,” she paused and jotted down a few things on the clipboard, “Do you know anything about his medical history? Does heart failure, cancer, mental illness, or kidney problems run in the family?”

  
"Why does any of this matter?" I asked, "What happened to him?"

 

She sighed before putting her clipboard to the side, "Based on what you described to me, he might have had a complex-partial seziure, those are usually indicative of a larger problem. Sometimes it is spurred on by withdrawal, but more often than not it is a symptom of a degenerative brain disease."

 

My stomach dropped through the floor.

 

"Epliepsy, Alzheimer's, dementia, and even cancers can cause symptoms similar to the ones you described. If any sort of disease runs in the family, he could be predisposed to get any of those diseases. It isn't anything personal, we are just trying to prevent any further damage if this turns out to be something larger than just a seizure."

 

I sat still afraid that if I moved more information that I didn't want to hear would come pouring from her lips, "His mother has early onset dementia,” she started flipping the papers on the clipboard over.

  
There were more questions that came after that. Simple, age birthdate, sex, cut and dry questions, none that required me to do any thinking. I was grateful. I signed papers that said that doctors could operate on him if they needed to, seeing that he wasn't in a state to consent to it himself.

  
After that, she escorted me out into the waiting and I chose a seat in the corner of the room. I don't know how long I sat in that chair, it could have been seconds, hours, or even days and wouldn't have been able to distinguish which. I was afraid, my thoughts were reeling, and I couldn’t get the image of him sprawled out on the floor out of my mind. Finally, a doctor walked into the room and announced my name. I stood up abruptly and followed her as she led me through the doors that connected this room to the hospital itself.

  
We walked down a seemingly endless hallway of green numbered doors, whitewashed walls, and white tile floors before we reached the room that the doctor told me housed the one I loved.

  
"I'm sorry," she said she looked like she really meant it too.

  
"What?" I asked becoming more and more worried, "what happened?"

  
"No one came and told you?" She looked astonished. I shook my head,"Well," she rubbed the back of her neck and leaned her head back slightly, "He had a seizure," she said slowly, I was already aware of that but she wasn’t finished, "So we did a CT scan, and found a golfball sized tumor in his brain. We think that the cause might have been contaminated water, if you live near him, you should probably get some tests done as well, just in case, but we can't remove the tumor at this stage," she paused to look me in the eyes, "It's too large, it would kill him if we operated now."

  
I opened my mouth but I couldn't say anything. It took me several seconds of standing there with my mouth gaping before I was able to force out, "But," I cut myself off, "But you can remove it right? Eventually. There's some sort of treatment, something we can do, he's not going to die, right?"

  
"We don't know, if he decides to go into treatment, it may shrink to an operateble size, but with how far along it is already," she trailed off, "I would have a lot of hope, it's already metastisized, it'll be difficult to treat, even more difficult to survive."

  
"If the treatment doesn't work, how long would he have?" I asked, I didn't want to know the answer. 

 

"I don't know. Some people have lived years like this, the tumors had very slow growth rates. But if it continues he could have anywhere from just a few days to months. It's still too early to tell." 

 

"And the treatment would be?"

  
She rubbed the back of her neck again, "Right now all that could possibly help is chemotherapy, we’ll have to see how he reacts to that and then maybe radiation. If all goes well those will shrink the tumor and we’ll be able to remove it. It’ll take months though, it’s not something we can do overnight."

  
I nodded and finally asked, "Ca-can I go in?"

  
“Yes,” the doctor said, gesturing towards the door, “he’s conscious, but still not responsive. We’re going to run a few more tests, but we’ll tell you if we learn anything new."

  
The doctor stepped aside and began to walk back down the hallway we had come from. I took several deep breaths and put my hand on the door knob. I couldn't turn it. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't force myself to open the door. I finally took one final deep shuddering breath and was able to twist the knob, the door swung open heavily.

  
I stepped into the darkened room. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and I can honestly say I wish they hadn't. There were monitors set up. I knew that one was his heart beat, but what the others were measuring was unknown to me. I tried to hold back tears as I saw the state Levi was in. The monitors were mostly attached to his hands which were lying unnaturally still by his sides. There was an IV drip attached to him on the underside of his left elbow. Levi's eyes were open, slightly, and covering his nose and mouth was a clear plastic mask that was forcing oxygen in and out of his lungs.

  
I slowly stepped into the rooms and sat down next to the left side of his bed, next to his upturned hand. He didn't react at all to me, he didn’t react to anything. I placed my hand on his chest and could feel the steady beat of his heart. He looked like a corpse, but his heart was beating, he was breathing, he was alive. That’s all that mattered to me.

  
I looked at his arm, resting so close to me. It was so pale. All the color in his skin looked like. It had been drained until he matched the color of the sheets he was resting on. His veins stuck out bright blue against the skin of his forearm and wrist. Instinctively I gently grabbed his hand, he was able to gingerly hold my hand back and turn his head just enough to look at me. His eyes had only been partially open, but after a few seconds of looking directly at me, his eyelids fluttered and shut. His heart rate started to slow down I started to panic, I didn’t know falling asleep could be such a nerve wracking experience. I slowly calmed down, I was still shaking. I felt like I was about to throw up, I couldn't handle anything right now.

  
I was tired, and still in shock. I didn't let go of Levi's hand, but I rested my head on the edge of his bed and slowly drifted into a dreamless sleep. Everything was black. Everything was cold there was nothing I could do to warm or light the world around me. It was terrifying. Was this a world without Levi?

  
A nurse poked me and I was brought back to reality. I didn't react, I thought that maybe if I didn't move she would leave me alone.

  
"Sir," she said and prodded me again, more forcefully this time, "Sir?" She repeated.

  
I realized that my strategy wouldn't work. I slowly picked my head up off the bed. My back was sore from slouching over and my head was throbbing.

  
"Visiting hours are over," she said quietly, "but may I speak with you outside?"

  
I groggily stood up and followed her to the door. Before I exited I looked back at Levi, he hadn't moved from the position he was in when I had first entered.

  
The nurse motioned for me to leave and I did not wanting to see him in that state any longer so I hurried out of the room.  
"I assume you know what's going on, right?" She asked. This nurse looked really young, younger than me at least.

  
I nodded.

  
"Well, he obviously shouldn't leave today, and the doctors say we should keep him here until at least the day after tomorrow. Of course I can't force you to keep him here, but I would not advise going against their word," she paused, "after that he'll need to come in once a week."

  
"Why?" I asked, I really wanted to spend as much time as possible with him, and coming to the hospital once a week would cut into the little time we had left.

  
"Chemo, and radiation have to be done here," she said, "also, you can make an appointment to have a preventive CT scan done, if this was caused by contaminated water then you might have been affected as well. The nurse at the front office can make an appointment for you, and you can make an appointment to start his chemo with her as well."

  
"Okay," I said unsure of what else I could say. She left no room for discussion, no room for questions.

  
She gestured for me to follow her, as she started to walk down the hallway towards the exit. I followed silently. I pushed open the door to the waiting room and looked over at the desk. A woman was sitting behind the counter typing away. I walked over to her.

  
“Hello,” she greeted me without looking up.

  
“Hello,”I said, as she looked up at me, “I would like to make an appointment.”

  
I would return to the hospital tomorrow, and as she finished making sure I would have a place to come tomorrow, she looked up at me suddenly, brows furrowed, "What does your car look like?" She asked, whilst digging behind the front desk.

  
"Uh," it was an odd question, "a white Sedan."

  
She pulled my keys out from the desk, "You left it running."

  
"Thanks," I said grabbing my keys.

  
"Oh," she said digging around behind the desk again, "and I think you should take this," she subtly handed me a pamphlet.

  
"Thank you," I said taking it from her hands. I didn’t even want to look at it. I knew what would be on it and I didn't want to know anything more about why Levi was here. Why he was unwell. As if not knowing would make it go away. Ignorance is bliss and if I could have a few more normal hours with the one I loved. I was more than willing to be ignorant.

  
I turned on my heel and exited the building. Thankfully, I hadn't parked in an ambulance lane, it was a normal parking spot. Thank god, I don't know what I would have done if my car had gotten towed.

  
During my drive home everything seemed surreal. It felt like I wasn't attached to the car, that I was just riding inside it, and it was doing all the work itself. When I got back to my apartment the reality of everything set in. I hadn't been able to move from the front door. I pressed my back against the thick wood and sunk into a sitting position. I held my head I my hands and started to cry again.

  
"Why?" I whispered to myself, "why is the only person I've ever loved going to die? He doesn't fucking deserve it." I couldn't even think after that, as if saying it outloud had solidified his fate. I wondered if it was my fault, if I could have done something, anything, to prevent it. I hadn’t realized I was crying until I brushed my hand across my cheek. I pushed my back against the door and used it to help get me into a standing position. I took a step forward and swayed, almost falling over. I stumbled, using the wall for support, and slowly worked my way over to my bedroom. I didn't even have the energy to take of my clothes before crawling under the covers of my bed and falling asleep. As I fell into another cold, dark dream world the only thing I could think about was how big this bed was when I was alone.

  
My alarm clock woke me up at 7:00, "Damn," I whispered to myself, as I slapped the top of the machine, stopping the sound.  
That reminded me that today was Tuesday, I was supposed to have gone to work yesterday and today. I'll have to talk to my boss, I thought, maybe I should take some time off.

  
It startled me when my hand fell through what would have been Levi and touched the covers. I was so used to him being there. The emotions came in waves, with the crest bringing a new feeling each time and the trough leaving me feeling more empty than I ever had before.

  
I pulled my legs out from under the covers. I got up and walked across the hallway to the bathroom. I took a shower and got dressed. I walked out into the kitchen and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. I had been warned not to eat before a scan, so even though hunger was gnawing at my gut, I replaced the fruit. I quickly grabbed my keys and walked out of my apartment.

  
I had a white-knuckled grip in the steering wheel the entire drive. My mind was spinning in seventy different directions at once. I should have brought him to the hospital sooner. I shouldn't have let him talk me out of helping him. What if the same thing happened to me? What should I do? Oh god, what should I do? I couldn't die now, I was too scared to die. 

  
I reached the hospital and parked out front this time. I made sure to turn off the engine before exiting and locking my car. It was a small hospital for such a large area, but I didn't mind, it felt less intimidating to walk into a small hospital than a large one.

  
Once I convinced myself to push open the door, I was attacked by the scent of hand sanitizers and various disinfecting sprays, it smelled like sickness that had been sterilized. This waiting room was much larger than the one that had been assigned to the emergency room. I walked up to the front desk, "Um, I'm here to visit a patient," I said to the man working the front desk.

  
"Name?" He asked nonchalantly.

  
"Levi Ackerman," I replied hoping that he had asked who I was visiting and not who I was. 

  
He typed something into the computer and waited silently for a few seconds, "Room 115," he said impatiently, "what's your name?"

  
"Eren Jaeger."

  
He typed some more before emotionlessly saying, "A doctor will come get when it's time for you CT scan."

  
"Thanks," I murmured. I walked passed the front desk and looked at the little plaques on the wall that told you which room numbers where in which directions.

  
100-150.

  
Left.

  
The hallway was shorter than I remember, but it was the same hallway I had walked before. I reached the room labeled 115 and grabbed the handle, it wasn't emotionally difficult to open this time, now that I knew what to expect. I opened the door and quietly stepped into the room. The blinds weren't closed this time so I didn't have to adjust to the lighting.

  
Levi was sitting up today. He no longer had the oxygen mask on, or the IV, and the monitors had also disappeared. I was relieved to see that his skin had returned to at least a human like tone. He looked over to me, startled at first. When he recognized me his expression softened.

  
"Hey," he said giving me a heartbreaking smile. I didn't know someone could smile and still look so sad. His eyes were brimmed with tears. I didn't know what to say to him. I almost couldn’t bear looking at him, but at the same time, he was the only thing I wanted to see.

  
"Hey," I said back trying to hold in the tears that we're starting to blur my vision.

  
I stood there in shock for a while before Levi made the attempt to stand up and walk over to me. I could tell he was still feeling the affects of the seizure, he swayed when he walked and moved oddly. It made me wonder if he had been permanently affected by it. He shuffled but his arms had to move a lot so he could keep his balance. Seeing this I knew that he probably wasn't supposed to be walking yet. I quickly made my way over to him and wrapped my arms around his chest, supporting all of his weight. 

  
He got what I meant by holding him, and allowed me to hold him. I picked him up, easily, and carried him over to the hospital bed. I couldn't see anymore, I was so close to bursting into tears.I didn't want to make it hard on Levi, so I kept my emotions to myself to the best of my abilities.

  
After Levi was situated in his bed I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and moved it close to him. It felt wrong for me to sit, I don't know why it did, but I felt like I didn't deserve to sit. I felt like this was my fault, "I'm sorry," I choked out, failing to keep my tears in any longer.

  
Levi grabbed my face and pulled himself closer until his forehead was touching mine, "Don't ever say that, you have nothing to be sorry for. This,” he said gesturing towards himself, “isn’t your fault, and it isn’t my fault. It just is, there’s nothing to feel sorry about," he removed his hands from my face and wrapped his arms around my neck. I pressed my face into his shoulder, draped my arms around his chest, and I began to cry harder.

  
Why was he comforting me? I should be comforting him. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be told you wouldn’t be living for much longer. I had no idea what it was like to be able to see the end and do nothing about it. I couldn’t imagine how scared, angry, and hopeless he must’ve felt, and I had no idea how to make it better. That’s what scared me the most. I couldn’t fix this.

  
"You're so good to me," I said still clinging onto Levi, "and I'm so shitty to you," I had to pause to draw in a shaken breath, "Fuck, I don't deserve you."

  
"That's not true," Levi said calmly.

  
"But it is," I said a bit too aggressively.

  
"No," he said, putting his hand on the back of my head and stroking my hair, "you deserve everything. You deserve the moon, and the stars, and all the beautiful things in the world. Don't ever count yourself short. Please. It’s irritating," he laughed a little, and I understood what he meant. I was sitting there wallowing in self pity when there was nothing I could do to solve the problem. Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to help anything.

  
I was able to let out a sad laugh, “Okay," I whispered to his shoulder. I could feel him smiling against my hair.  
It was a long time before the nurse came to take me to what was apparently a CT scan. I was laid down on a bed and was sent through a doughnut looking machine. I got to see the scan results, after it was complete. I saw that some spots lit up more than others, which worried me, but then they put up Levi's scan. It was similar to mine with the exception of the large spot of white towards the back of his skull. They compared the two, and the spots that I had been worried about were, apparently, nothing to be worried about.

  
Despite not being the one in danger, my chest was tight with anxiousness.

  
"You’ll need to fill out these," the doctor said handing me a pile of papers. They were for Levi, mostly, just a few forms for me. I knew he would probably be doing paperwork for the rest of the day, "Also," the doctor continued, "if anything else out of the ordinary happens, bring him back immediately."

  
I swallowed a lump in my throat and asked, "If anything out of the ordinary happens, do you think he would be able to recover from it?"

  
The doctor sighed, "It depends, but with how far the cancer has already progressed, it would be doubtful that he he could recover. Did you read the pamphlet that the nurse gave you yesterday?"

  
"No," I responded. It was still in the jeans I had worn the day before.

  
"I would highly suggest it," she said, "it has a list of all of the symptoms that you should bring him in for."

  
I nodded, and the doctor started to walk away, I followed her out of the CT scan room before we both split and went in different directions.

  
I brought the paperwork to Levi's hospital room.

  
He turned and looked at me when I entered the room. He smiled at me so brightly, I almost didn't believe he had been told what was going on. He was dressed in the clothes he had been brought in yesterday. He was standing in the center of the room, looking out the window at the large hospital garden.

  
Levi returned his gaze to the window, "When we move into that house," he paused, "We'll have a big garden like this," he paused again, "it's very mild there. We could grow things all year round. Flower, fruits, anything we want." He looked at me again eyes brimming with tears that he couldn't hide any longer.

  
I didn't know what to do, I averted my eyes let him have what little privacy he could. Several pamphlets were sprawled across the bedside table, I couldn't look at them.

  
They were all branded with the same word.

  
Terminal.

  
Terminal.

  
Terminal.

  
I decided that at that moment I would never look at that word the same.

  
"H-how are you feeling?" I asked shakily.

  
"Better," he said looking at me with the same sad smile, "what about you?"

  
Our conversation was awkward. We had never had awkward conversations before. We had both always known what to say. We had always been so comfortable with each other, but now it felt like I was talking to a stranger. Neither of us wanted to address the elephant in the room, we both chose to ignore it.

  
"I've been okay," I replied sounding unsure.

  
We didn't speak, for a while Levi and I just stood across from each other and stared. After a few seconds Levi took several steps closer to me and stopped just centimeters away. He looked down, "I'm sorry," he paused and took a breath, "for everything I might do to you, and for not being able to do everything with you."

  
I couldn't speak. My brain had completely shut down, and all I could do was wrap my arms around the small person in front of me and draw him as close as I could. Why did it feel like this was my fault? Several moments passed in silence, I didn't want to face anything. eventually we pulled apart, and directed our attention to the paperwork. It served as a much needed distraction from our current situation. There was so much more paperwork than what I had to do. It was mostly waivers that said if there ever any complications we couldn't sue the hospital, they needed lots of information on him. It seemed excessive to me.

  
He wrote his name out on almost all of the forms. Levi Ackerman. I allowed my mind to wander. If we were to get married, would he take my last name, would I take his, or would neither of us change? I would be happy either way.

 

Levi broke the silence first as we both scribbled away at the documents before us, "You told them you were my husband."

 

"I did," I said thinking back, "I don't know why it just slipped out."

 

"I think I'm too old for the word 'boyfriend' anyway," he said making quotes with his fingers in the air, "But, that still sounds like a promise to me."

 

"Maybe it was," I said tipping my head to the side, "how would you feel about that."

 

"You've never broke your promises to me before," he paused, "I hope you keep it that way."

  
As we finished the paperwork and returned it to the front desk, the woman behind the counter gave us a few business cards. The first one she gave to me, it had the time and date of Levi's first chemo appointment.

  
"The chemo by itself may not be effective," she said, as she spoke Levi inhaled sharply, "in that case we would also use radiation therapy. If it is necessary, we will make an appointment, but right now we just have to wait and see what happens," she then scribbled something on another business card and handed it to Levi. He stiffly took it and looked over the card. The nurse smiled at us sympathetically before speaking, "Have a nice day."

  
As soon as we were out of the hospital doors. Levi took my hand, and I led him towards the car. We sat in silence for the first three miles of the drive.

  
"What did she write on the card?" I asked trying to make some conversation.

  
"The phone number to a long-distance support group," he said looking at the card he had been given just minutes earlier.  
I briefly looked over at him, and noticed his pockets were filled with colorful, glossy paper. He had brought those vile pamphlets with him. I didn't respond to his answer.

  
"So," Levi started, looking down at his knees, "how long did they tell you?"

  
"I don't know," I responded.

  
"Please don't play dumb with me right now," Levi said, turning to me, “I know you’re upset, but I just want to know what’s going on.”

  
"I'm not," I replied, "the doctors told me that some people have lived for years with stuff like this, but others," I was already talking quietly, but I trailed off at the end of my sentence, "don't."

  
He nodded slowly, and turned to look out the window.

  
Levi suddenly leaned forward and put his hand on the back of his head before sitting up, and suddenly, with a mixture of anger and sadness, half shouted, "Fuck!"

  
It was hard to sit and watch, all I could do was grip the steering wheel tighter and tried to imagine what it would be like to be told you were dying. After the sudden outburst Levi calmed down again. He had tipped his head back against the headrest, and stared at the ceiling of the car for the remainder of the car ride home.

  
Once we were inside the apartment, Levi righted the chair I had tipped over the day before, on my mad dash out of the house. He picked it up in such a casual way it saddened me.

  
It was heartbreaking. I watched him as he wandered aimlessly around the living room before sitting in front of one of the canvasses he had been working on. He didn't make any moves to start working, he sat without moving.

  
My phone rang, breaking up the pitiful situation. It was Petra. I answered the phone and put it on speaker phone. Levi stepped closer to the me so we could both be heard by the caller.

  
"Hello," I said trying to sound like nothing was wrong.

  
"Heeeeyyyy," called Hanji in her usual happy go lucky tone from the other end of the call.

  
"Hanji!" Petra shouted before greeting us, "Hi guys, you're on speaker phone with everyone. We are in the car going to get pizza, you wanna come? It's my treat."

  
Levi and I looked at each other, he responded stiffly, "Sure."

  
"Oh, hi Levi!" Petra said in an overly sweet tone, "How are you?”

  
"I’m okay," he said, I could tell he was trying to avoid the subject, "thanks."

  
“I tried calling you yesterday. You guys okay?” Erwin asked from the background.

  
“I, um,” Levi paused and scratched the back of his head, “not really," he sighed, "can we talk about this in person?"

  
“Of course,” Petra said almost immediately, “You're at home right, we'll be right over.”

 

Th car ride to the regular pizza place was stiff, everyone wanting to know, and no one wanting to answer.

 

It wasn't until we got the farmiliar building that anyone spoke up. We sat at the bar and Levi almost immediately ordered a few rounds of shots. 

 

"I didn't realize 'Party Levi' was making an appearance today," Oulo stated at Levi choice of drink. Tequila. 

 

"You do realize that its like ten o'clock in the morning right Levi?" Petra shot over at him.

 

"I do," He said dowing the first round that was put in front of him and asking for another, "and I need a drink, end of story."

 

"What the hell happened to you two?" Hanji piped up.

 

Levi looked over at me before he sighed and started to explain, "Do you know what caused it?" Hanji butted in. She had graduated with a masters in generalized medicine, so naturally any ailments that affected anyone in our group were of interest to her.

  
He paused and ran a hand over his face before replying, almost mechanically, "Yeah."

  
"Well, what was it?" she asked after he didn’t continue. Sometimes I swore Hanji's curiosity would be the death of her.

  
Neither of us spoke for a while, and no one on the other end interrupted the silence. Neither of us wanted to say it. We made eye contact for a few seconds. Neither of us wanted to accept the reality of what was going on. I felt like if I just denied that it was real, it would go away. Like willing away nightmares as a kid.

  
Levi spoke in a shaky voice, "A stage four brain tumor."

  
Hanji didn't reply, no one did for a few seconds.

  
"What does that mean?" Oulo asked sounding annoyed.

  
"It means I'm dying."

  
The drive home was no less awkard, Levi seemed to be the only one who was enjoying himself granted he had gotten completely shitfaced and would probably have no idea what had happened to him tomorrow morning. i managed to get him into bed soon after we got home with only a little bit of grief. After he was taken care of, I did as the doctor had suggested and read the pamphlet. It was brightly colored, and had large letters at the top that read: Living With Terminal Brain Tumors: A Guide to Understanding Your Loved One's Cancer.

I hated that piece of paper more than I thought was humanly possible. On the inside it listed all of the symptoms to expect which was more terrifying than the explanation of the cancer itself. They were listed as:

  
1\. Seizures  
2\. Hallucinations  
3\. Loss in hearing and sight  
4\. Loss of coordination  
5\. Memory problems  
6\. Personality changes

  
I hated that pamphlet. I wished destroying it would solve my problem. By the time I was finished reading everything, I figured it would have been better to not know what was wrong. I wished I could have erased the facts and statistics from my mind, because none of them said he was going to make it out alive.

  
Levi had read the ones he had been given, and he didn't react to them much better than I did.

The next morning came with one hell of a hangover and more tears. I didn't know how to console him. It wasn't like I could go up to him and say, "Hey, I'm sorry you're dying," and somehow make it all better.

  
We went out again the next night, stayed out all afternoon and night, and the realization that we needed to use what little time we had left set in. We had come to some kind of unspoken agreement that we wouldn't act like something was wrong. We would just enjoy the time we had left together.

  
Over the next few days the awkwardness that we had run into after the hospital wore off, and everything felt somewhat normal. Levi and I continued to work, although I had convinced my boss to let me work from home, so I could spend more time with Levi.

  
We spent more time with our friends, seeing as it was summer and the world was so beautiful.

  
Levi still had very mild headaches every so often, but it was nothing too serious, luckily. Sometimes he would do something completely out of the ordinary and it would scare all of us. Most of the time it was nothing, but I was constantly on edge.  
I had never been a religious person, but I prayed that he would be able to recover. Deep down I knew he wouldn't, but I prayed for some miracle. All they could do at the hospital was try to prolong his life, they couldn't cure him. Of course that didn't stop them from putting him through what could be considered hell. Cancer wasn't hell, the treatment was. It was a monster wrapped in a nice little box with a ribbon that read “cure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did y'all think? I'm sorry it is sad and there is much more of that to come, please tell me what you think. Thank you for reading this far!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look whose back. Thank you all for reading this far, last chapter I got a lot of comments about adding a "sad end" tag to this fic which I will, sorry I'm still new at the whole tagging thing. Anyway sorry it has taken so long to update, I've been writing about 4 other fics that I may or may not post, they are all mostly just self indulgent, but I'll talk more about those at the end of the chapter. Thank you for reading this far I hope you like this one.

At first I hadn’t believed it would be that bad.

  
We drove to the hospital, and checked in. We were greeted by the nurse at the front desk, "Hello!" she said smiling at us, "How may I help you today?"

  
"We have an appointment today," Levi replied.

  
"Can I have a last name please?" she said turning to her computer.

  
"Ackerman," he responded.

  
She typed for a few seconds, "If you will wait here," she gestured to the waiting room, "the doctor will come get you soon."

  
"Thank you," we both said, before turning and sitting in one of the chairs that were scattered about the room.

  
We tried to keep a lighthearted outlook on the situation, so while we waited be both joked around and tried to laugh. Levi had not lost his sense of humor yet, and I was unwilling to let too much time pass between his practically trademarked witty banter. It felt like too soon the doctor came to collect Levi, I followed unwilling to allow us to be separated, and surprisingly there wasn’t an issue. We were walked into a large hallway with curtained rooms on both sides. Levi was escorted behind one of the curtains, and I followed closely behind. It was a small room, with various instruments that I couldn't identify. The doctor did a routine check up: blood pressure height, weight, odds, and ends. Then she left the room.

  
"What was that all about?" I asked once the doctor was out of earshot.

  
He shrugged, "If you haven't noticed, I'm just as clueless about this as you."

 

I forced out a laugh, but it was impossible to keep the stiffness out of the room. Walls separated each room, but it was easy enough to hear through them. I could hear the hushed conversations of other patients, other doctors. I wondered if anyone was being told that they were dying too. Or was Levi the only one here that had been granted that privilege? Statistically speaking, there had to be others that were dying in this hospital, probably just croaking as I was thinking about it it was morbid to think about, this place of healing harbor in so many ended stories. 

  
I jumped as the doctor pulled back the curtain and dragged in an IV drip. The liquid in the bag was reddish pink, and didn't look friendly. Levi seemed intent to listen as the doctor started telling him the ins and outs of the medication he was being put on while I was content with just zoning the entire conversation out. I watched as the liquid in the bag sloshed from side to side, watched as it stared back at me with eyes I only wish I could have seen. 

  
After sterilizing the area on the underside of Levi's elbow she inserted the needle and I started to listen as she spoke, "Also don't move your arm too much while this is attached."

  
"Alright," Levi agreed nodding.

 

The doctor flipped what looked like a switch attached to the tube connecting Levi's arm to the IV, and the liquid began to flow downward, "It's going to sting a little." If it stung at all I couldn't tell. Even with my eyes trained on Levi's face, I couldn't see a hint of pain there, "All good so far?" She asked after a few moments of the liquid breaching Levi's bloodstream. He nodded in response, "Okay," she said turning away from him, "I have to go check up on a few other paitents if anything happens or you start to feel sick, just come grab someone from out there."

 

"Got it," Levi said offering her a weak smile and turning his attention back to me as the curtain swung shut.

 

We fell back into the comfort of one another's presence as the time droned on. It was not a fast moving medication, and if we were both going to make it out the other side of this appointment sane, we would have to talk. 

  
"I just don't understand how you can think that the Green Lantern is a better superhero than Wolverine," Levi said as the doctor returned. I wouldn't say we had been arguing for the past hour or so about this, but saying that it had only been a heated discussion would have been an understatement. 

  
"How can you not?" I retorted trying to end the argument as the doctor removed the now empty IV from Levi's arm, "He can literally create anything by just thinking about it hard enough."

  
"Seriously," Levi asked me sarcastically, "he's a mortal man, that relies on concentration for his superpowers. You could probably just put a pair of tits in front of him and the world would be fucked." The words slipped out of his mouth before he had had time to process the true implication of their meaning. Almost as soon as Levi had uttered those words his face dropped, "Sorry," he muttered to the doctor. 

  
The doctor snorted before adding, "It's true. Trust me, I've delt with plenty of men before," she looked at me and smiled.

  
"See," Levi mumbled under his breath. It was his way of saying I told you so. The doctor cleaned off his arm and bandaged it tightly.

  
"There might be some bruising," was her final warning before leading us out into the hallway again.

  
We were walked out to our car by the doctor. As we were walking down the hall she warned us, "Chemo is a powerful drug, so you might feel sick later tonight, but if you experience anything that is completely out of the ordinary, you should come back immediately."

  
Everything she said sounded like one of the commercials for medicine. She listed off side effects quickly, and there were a lot, which didn't help my growing anxiety.

  
But the longer she rambled on the more it seemed like the treatment had to work, He was getting pretty strong stuff, so that meant he had a better chance of living. Right? The nurse said that the tumor had to shrink to about 1/16th of its size before they could remove it, and with the amount and strength of medicine Levi was getting it had to shrink. Right? I kept my thoughts to myself, trying to calm my nerves.

  
After what felt like an eternity we reached our car and hopped inside, "Well," Levi paused, "that was depressing."

  
"You're telling me," I said back in a sarcastic tone.

  
Levi forced a laugh.

  
"How are you feeling?" At this point I was more worried out the side effects of the medication than the actual ailment itself.

  
"A little weird," Levi said rubbing his arms, "but not horrible."

  
As the day progressed "a little weird" tuned into "horrible."

  
The treatment made him sick. Really sick. Like sit-in-the-bathroom-all-night-because-you-can't-make-it-two-minutes-without-throwing-up sick. That's what Levi ended up doing, and I wasn't about to let him sit up all night alone dealing with this shit. The monster had burst out from the box and was laughing at me, because now I knew what he was, and I still had to surrender the on I loved to him.

  
And the cherry on top of this pile of shit was that I couldn’t help him. There was nothing I could do but sit by and try to calm keep him calm through his retching. I held him as long as I could, but he needed space to empty his stomach, so our time of physical contact was cut short, and even during the moment when I could hold him, he seemed uncomfortable. 

  
"I can't do this anymore," he gasped after another round of puking. His eyes began to water, "make it stop," he whispered as he pushed himself against me, "please, please just make it stop."

  
As if I didn't want to help, "I can't," I whispered, which spurred a whimper out of Levi who was sitting on my lap, pressing his back into my chest.

  
Levi said nothing, and turned to bury his face in my shirt. I wrapped my arms around him trying to comfort him in any way I could. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead, he smelled of sickness and bile. Soon enough the sun started to rise, and his spurt of violent sickness began to subside. He fell asleep in my lap, curled up against me.

  
I carried him to our bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. I was asleep quickly.

  
We both awoke that afternoon. Levi stared at me for several minutes before speaking, "I'm sorry."

  
"Don't be," I responded pulling him close to me.

  
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, away from me, "Eren," he whispered at me, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything," he had leaned forward and was resting his head on his arms, "I don't want to hurt you, and," he trailed off before resuming his speech, "and with the way things are looking right now," he shook his head.

  
Surprisingly his words didn't upset me, "No," I replied looking him straight in the eyes, "I don't care I'm not leaving."

  
"I'll destroy you."

  
"So be it," I replied, "I'm staying to the end, no matter what the end is."

  
Levi paused and thought for a moment. I knew he didn't want to face this alone, "Promise?" He asked.

  
"I promise," I replied pulling him close to me, and returning to sleep.

  
It was hard to ignore Levi's condition some days. As much as he tried to hide the worst from me, he could never disguise the days he couldn't get out of bed, or the times he was so sick he could barely stand. When these days showed he always looked disgusted. Not with me, or the world, but himself. I could tell he hated feeling so vulnerable. Not that he hadn't shown vulnerability towards me before, it was just this type of vulnerability was different. He was a strong person. By every definition of the word he was a strong person. But this made him weak, and if those bad days didn't break him, the day that his hair started to fall out in chunks did.

  
Levi had always had the most beautiful silky, jet black hair. It was painful to watch it dull, and start to fade in color. It was even harder to watch it start detaching itself from his scalp.

  
Levi looked in the bathroom mirror and sighed, "I think it's time to cut it off."

  
I had to admit, it didn't look very good. Large patches had fallen off, and it had dulled into a dark grey. Of course I would never have told him that, "Do you want to do it, or should I?" I asked trying to be supportive. The more I looked the worse it seemed to become. I could see almost all of his scalp. 

  
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at me in the mirror, "Can you do it?"

  
"Of course," I replied walking up beside him, "how should we go about this?"

  
"Well," he said in his signature tone, "first you need to put something on the floor, because I do not want to have to clean up the mess."

  
"But of course, my love," I said kissing his cheek before leaving to grab a towel. Levi followed me out of the bathroom to grab a pair of scissors.

  
As I returned to the bathroom, and spread the towel on the floor, I heard Levi rummage around in the other room for scissors. It was such a simple action, yet I wanted to hold on to it forever. I wanted to have memories of him doing atrociously normal things to hold on to. I wanted just a sense of normality. Normal things were something I could hold on to, something to bury all the moments I dreaded under.

  
The sound of Levi returning, spurred me to stand up, and grab a razor and shaving cream from the cabinet below the sink. Placing them on the sink I looked at Levi, who placed the scissors next to the razor. He looked up at me and smiled weakly, "Ready?" He asked.

  
"Always."

  
He pulled his shirt over his head, before sitting on the towel.

  
Everything was silent, except for the sound of the scissors snipping at what was left of his once gorgeous hair. Once it had been trimmed short enough to shave off completely, I did just that. Levi was very still, almost painfully still, the entire time.

  
I broke the silence first, "Are you a statue?"

  
He laughed quietly, "Not yet, just thinking."

  
"Ah, sorry to interrupt you," I said only mocking him slightly.

  
"No, I probably need to stop thinking anyway," there was another long lull in the conversation again, before Levi whispered, "it's so quiet."

  
"Yeah, it's nice."

  
"Have you heard any good songs lately?"

  
He had never really asked me about my taste in music before so I was a bit taken aback, "Yeah, I heard a nice song on my way home from work yesterday."

  
"Sing it for me?"

  
I had only heard it once, so I tried my hardest to remember anything about it. Eventually a tune came to mind so I began to hum. Levi closed his eyes and just listened. It was a melancholy song. I remembered the chorus somewhat, so when the time came I tried my best to sing it. I had never had any talent for singing, but trying was enough, 

  
"What am I gonna do now?  
I'm already too far down  
When am I gonna be free?  
I'm just a ghost on the highway  
What am I gonna do now?  
I'm already too far down  
When am I gonna be free?  
I'm just a ghost on the highway of fallen kings," I finished humming the song and it was silent between us again.

  
"I like that," Levi said eyes still closed.

  
It only took a few more seconds for me to finish up, "There," I said standing up and dusting the hair off his shoulder, "done."

  
He didn't move for a while, "How does it look?" He asked eventually.

  
"Different," I replied. All of the other adjectives that came to mind wouldn't have been especially helpful at the moment, so in the end "different" was all I could say.

 

"That's not helping my self confidence at all," he said still making no headway at standing up, "Just tell me if it looks good or bad."

 

"It looks good," I said raising my hands in defense, "It just is going to take a while to get used to." I ran my hands over the top of his head. 

  
Levi finally grabbed onto the edge of the kitchen sink andslowly stood up. He scowled at himself in the mirror, and ran his hands over his head, "I hate it."

  
"No," I said, trying to be at least a little bit supportive, "it's cute, you have an adorable head."

  
"You shouldn't lie to me," he said, placing his hands on the edge of the sink, so he could stick his hip it at an angle that only told me this was a lecture.

  
"No it's just," I had to pause, "different."

  
He rolled his eyes and returned his gaze to himself. I knew all the warning signs of his breakdowns like the back of my hand by now, and like hell if I didn't see one coming. I didn't have the energy to deal with this, not right now. It was a lot to take in all at once, and I was so tired. 

  
"What's wrong," I asked, starting to clean up, "you've never seemed like the type of person that is big into appearances before."

  
"I'm not. It's just," he trailed off, "never mind," he turned and began to help me clean up.

  
"First of all," I started, now assuming my lecturing pose, "you can't just start telling me something and then stop halfway through, that's just cruel. And second, you should talk to me, tell me what's wrong. I'm in this for the long haul, remember?"

  
He sighed, "It's just," he stopped himself again, "this really means I'm dying, doesn't it?"

  
I didn't know how to react to Levi's question. It didn't help that I knew absolutely nothing about tumors. Did this mean he was dying? No, it couldn't right? People lost their hair all the time, but it grew back and they ended up being fine, right?

  
It didn't mean he was dying.

  
It couldn't .

  
I was finally happy. I finally had a reason to wake up and look forward to new days. I finally didn't feel like I was worthless. And yet, all of that was slipping through my fingers. Everything that I held dear was getting away from me. I sighed, I was tired. Why couldn't all of this just disappear. I kept waiting to wake up from this sadistic nightmare but it seemed like dawn wasn't coming.

  
"Why is the world so cruel?" I asked in response.

  
"I don't know what you mean."

  
"I'm finally happy for the first time in my goddamn worthless life, and yet my happiness is going to be torn away from me. I ask again, why is the world so fucking cruel?" I was shouting. I hadn't meant to shout it just kind of happened.

  
I regretted everything that I had just said. A look crossed Levi's face. I had known him for a long time, and I had never seen him make that face before. I didn't know exactly what it was, but it looked painful, like he was trying to make every expression all at once.

  
"I thought you were still hopeful," he said, just quiet enough to break my heart.

  
"I'm tired of always having to pretend that it's going to be okay," what was I saying, "I'm tired of always having to act like everything will end up perfectly, and that this is just a speed bump. Levi, I'm tired. And I know that this is hard for you and I've been trying to be good about it, but it's hard for me too and-" I was shouting by the time he cut me off.

  
Levi didn't yell. Ever. I wouldn't have called the tone he used "yelling," but he raised his vice to a level I had never heard before, "And you don't think I know that? Do you not think that I've been trying to make this easy for you too? Eren, I'm trying my best, and I'm sorry if my best isn't good enough for you, but I'm tired too. I'm tired of having to pretend that I'm okay all the time, and that things will get better, when I know they won't. Please, Eren, I'm trying to make this work and I'm sorry that you can't see that, but please I just need you to be there for me for a little while longer."

  
His last sentence made all the colour drain from my face.

  
A little while longer.

  
A little while longer.

  
I had been yelling before, but now my voice was gone. When it did return I was hoarse, "You said, 'A little while,' does that mean," I trailed off not wanting to come to the conclusion myself. Every part of my brain rebelled against itself, I wasn't going to come to that conclusion.

  
"Yeah," he said shrugging slightly as he spoke, "finally got that estimate. Took them damn long enough." He wrapped his arms around himself. He looked so broken. 

  
"W-when," I asked not wanting to hear the answer.

  
"Three months," he said not looking at me, "they said maybe six, tops."

  
Nothing in the world mattered anymore. The ground fell out from under me. I was spinning into nothingness.  
Three months.

  
Three months ago, everything had been fine. So much, yet so little had changed in three months. There wasn't enough time in the world for us to be together, and yet I had been given three months.

  
"I'm going for a walk," Levi said pulling on his shirt and walking out of the bathroom.

  
"I'm coming with," I said trying to convince myself that I could walk.

  
"No," he replied from the front door. He spoke in the same monotone he had used when I met him, "I'll just be a minute." With that the door slammed and I was left alone in our apartment.

  
I had fucked up. I had fucked up badly. I should have gotten angry, or sad, or reacted in some way at all. But I couldn't. I just felt numb. Nothing mattered anymore. Everything I loved was going to wither and die in front of me in three months, and I could do nothing to stop it.

  
I was used to getting angry, it had become a defense mechanism over the years, but I couldn't bring myself to feel anything. I closed my eyes and felt the weight of the world crash into me.

  
Three months.

  
I'm so selfish.

  
Three months.

  
I shouldn't do this to him.

  
Three months.

  
I don't know what to do.

  
Three months.

  
I'm afraid.

  
Three months.

  
I'm afraid.

  
I sat on the bathroom floor, not wanting to move, not wanting to accept the facts that had just been laid out in my lap. How was I supposed to just let this go? How was I supposed to get over it?

  
I couldn't think.

  
How can people move on? I didn't want to move on.

  
I don't know how long I sat there, before I heard the door open, and Levi returned. Neither of us said a word, the weight of the silence was tangible. It pressed itself into every part of my being. Suffocating every part of the person I had once believed was so happy. I ran my hands over my face and into my hair. Levi was standing at the door watching me, with the most pitiful expression.

  
"I think," I began finally bringing the thoughts that had been mulling themselves around my head into reality, "that I would rather die here than live without you, forever."

  
"Don't say that," he said, in a whisper, "don't make me feel more guilty for this than I already do."

  
I hadn't meant to, and yet I could do nothing to tell him that.

  
"What do you want me to do about it?" he asked more accusingly, "I already hate myself for this, don't you dare try to blame this on me."

  
"I wasn't trying to," I replied.

  
I couldn't save this.

  
"Eren, we can't go on pretending that this doesn't exist. As much as I want to run away from my problems, I'm tired, I can't run anymore. I don't want to be around someone who makes me feel like this is my fault," he paused. I knew he was stressed and needed to talk, "I know what you have said before, but things change, people change, Eren. Please, if you don't want to be around, you have no obligation to stay."

  
I could only stare.

  
"I'm tired of waiting, Eren. Are you staying or not?"

  
"O-of course I'm staying, Levi, can you really expect me to leave?" I stood up and walked towards him.

  
He groaned and rested his head against the door frame, "No, no, no please don't do this to me."

  
"What? What am I doing to you? What have I ever done to you?" I was getting angry, “you are asking me to leave and I’m not going to. You're asking me to leave because you don't want to deal with me anymore, and yet I'm doing something to you? What is it?”

  
"Nothing! Nothing, you've never done anything at all, Eren, and that's the problem," he was on the verge of tears now, "you can't just sit back and take all of the shit I throw at you all the time. God, stand up for yourself for once. Be selfish for once, give me a reason for me to be angry with you."

  
"Why?" I asked I was genuinely concerned at this point in the conversation.

  
"I don't know!" he shouted this time. He actually shouted. I was worried, what the hell was going on, "I don't know, just-" he cut himself off.

  
"What's wrong?" I asked, I needed to know that he wasn't going to fall apart.

  
"I don't know," he paused tears were streaming down his face now, "I can't think straight anymore. It's like my brain refuses to work sometimes, and I'll forget days sometimes, and I just don't want to loose any of the time I have left. But I know that it's hard for you too, and I don't want to hurt you, but I feel like I am just by existing, and-" a beat, "I just don't know what to do anymore."

  
"So you thought that," I had to change my tactic halfway through my sentence, "You want to have an excuse to break up with me?"

  
"I don't know a lot, Eren, but I know I’m hurting you, and I can’t stand myself for making you stay."

  
"But I want to stay. Levi I love you more than anyone I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m not going to give that up. Just tell me what you want, tell me what you need."

  
"I don't know! I have no idea what I want," he paused, neither of us spoke for several minutes. Neither of us moved, it was if time had frozen. If only time had frozen in a more happy moment. I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around him. He collapsed into me, "Please don't leave me."

  
"I won't."

  
"Do you promise?"

  
"I can't promise forever," I started, "but I can promise now."

  
"That's enough."

  
"It’ll never be enough," I said.

  
"It'll have to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! What did you think? I am thinking about posting another Student AU, but a much nicer one to read, IDK I'm trash for student AUs, we'll see what happens.


	20. Children Do Make Wonderful Teachers

Winter was on the way, the time of year I always dreaded.

  
"I hate winter," Levi said, shivering under his black winter jacket. He was almost completely swallowed by the material, the result of tremendous weight loss. He had been having trouble finding the will to eat, and once he was eating, keeping it down was yet another challenge. He had on a hat, which as well as keeping him warm, covered his head. It had become yet another point of self consciousness.

  
"Me too," I replied. Kicking at the gravel on the path. It hadn't yet started to snow, but all the life had been drained from the outside world.

  
"Do you think it'll snow soon?"

  
"I don't know," I sighed, looking up at the grey sky. It had been cloudy all week.

  
"Hopefully," Levi mumbled under his breath.

  
"I thought you hated winter."

  
"I do, but I'd rather look at snow than this," he glared at the ground, "without snow winter is just cold and sad."

  
We continued to walk in silence, and my mind began to wander. I found myself getting so caught up in thinking, lately, that I'd completely forgotten how to go about living. Levi could tell when I lost myself to the rounds of inner ping pong that kept me truely seeing anything besides my own self pity. He always would interrrupt me by saying something along the lines of, "What are you doing? It looks like you're about to shit yourself," or, "I can literally see the gears in your head turning, it looks painful," but this time, maybe out of pity or irritation p, he kept quiet. He allowed me to drift from thought to thought in silence.

  
I was enjoying this now, spending time with the person I loved, but how much longer would we have together. I had always entertained the thought that he would bounce back from this, but now I wasn't sure.

  
It seemed like everyday he had less strength and life in him, would it someday run out? It was like watching an hourglass draining, standing on the outside, I couldn't do anything to stop it. What would I do when the sand ran out? Would I be able to turn the thing around again, or would I only be able to sit and stare at everything I had as it faded into nothingness.

  
He seemed fine now, but this could be one of his last moments. Not knowing was going to kill me. How was I supposed to make the most of the time I had left when I didn't even know how much time there was to make the most of? Three months was the maximum, but there was still the threat that he would die tomorrow. How was I supposed to know what to do when I didn't know how much time I was permitted to do it? It was infuriating.

  
My thoughts were spurred in a different direction by the sound of little feet, running.

  
I knew that I wanted to be married, but would I ever want to start a family? Would I ever want kids, now seemed too soon, but would I want a family later in life?

  
It would be great to have a family, and a real house, and be able to come home every night to a home filled with the people that I love, and have a normal life. Would I ever create a family with Levi? I could already picture him as a father. He would pretend to be a hardass, but would cave to everything the child would ask of him. He had a soft spot for things that depended on him, no matter how much he tried to hide it. 

  
The thought of having children kept my attention. If I did marry the person I loved, we would never be able to have children. If I married the person I loved, there would never be little kids running around that looked like both of us. We could adopt and I would love those children with all of my heart, but I would never have a little Levi. That was probably for the best. I would spoil that child rotten if he existed.

  
My thoughts were completely interrupted by the sound that had started them in the first place. The little, running feet had gotten very close and had eventually stopped just to my left.

  
When I looked over, a small child attached himself to Levi's leg and began to sob.

  
"I'm lost!" He sobbed, his words muffled by Levi's pant leg, which he seemingly refused to let go of. The child continued to sob and mumble things that couldn't make out.

  
The one thing that confuses me to this day about this encounter was why the child chose to walk up to Levi. There were plenty of people in the park, but he had chosen to run up to us. Neither of us knew what to do at first, Levi gave me a look that screamed, _What the fuck?_ The kid couldn't have been more than 6.

  
Eventually Levi knelt down and was able to pry the sniveling child off his leg, "Hey, it's okay, you're fine," he had taken both the kids hands in his and was wiping away his tears. Yes, Levi would’ve made a great father.

  
Once he had calmed down he repeated more audibly, "I'm lost."

  
"Okay," Levi said looking up at me for some kind of reassurance, I only shrugged, "who did you loose?"

  
"My mom."

  
"And what's her name?"

  
"Dad calls her Josie."

  
"Alright, and what's your name?"

  
"Alexander James Hoffman," he seemed so proud to say his full name.

  
"And how old are you?"

  
"Five and a half."

  
It was at this time that the sky decided to open up and start snowing. I wouldn't have minded if at the moment we didn't have to help a kid find his mother.

  
I heard Levi sigh, "Let’s go wait in the visitor center for your mom, okay?"

  
"Okay," he replied happily.

  
Levi picked up Alexander, it made me nervous, he hadn't been able to do a lot recently and I definitely didn't want him overworking himself on something so trivial.

  
As we walked I saw the child grab onto Levi's hat before asking, "Why don't you have any hair?"

  
"Because I'm sick," Levi replied nonchalantly, the kid seemed horrified, he covered his mouth and nose in an attempt to sheild of himself from Levi's "sickness."

  
"Will I loose all my hair too, if I get sick?"

  
Levi smiled slightly at his reaction, "No, this is a different kind of sick, your insides get sick and the medicine makes your hair fall out."

  
"Really?" He seemed amazed, "Why does it do that?"

  
"Because the medicine is supposed to kill the sickness, but sometimes to do that it kills your hair too."

  
"Oh," the kid replied, he looked confused, like he was trying to make some sort of connection, but was just at the cusp, unable to pull the whole thought together. Levi wasn't great at explaining everything. Trying to explain to me why I needed to go get my car worked on when the struts wore out had been worse though.

 

"What is it called?" He asked.

  
"What is what called?" Levi replied.

  
"The sickness that makes you lose you hair?"

  
Levi paused his end of the conversation. We had always refrained from referring to it by its name, because you will find, that sometimes there are certain demons that you don't want to name. Even when the name is given to you on a silver platter it's hard to say, because as soon as you name it, it become real. It comes to life and you suddenly have to face it.

  
"Cancer," he said more soberly than I think was intended.

  
Alexander's eyes suddenly lit up, as if simply by saying the word, Levi had inspired the most mind altering revelation that this kid had ever experienced, "That's what my sister has! She has to go to the hospital a lot, but mama says that she's getting better so we won't have to go as much!" The kid started to squirm in Levi's arms, I watched as he grimaced and held the child more tightly.

  
"That's great," Levi said trying too hard to sound excited, "I'm glad your sister is getting better."

  
"Me too," he said contently, finally settling down again.

  
I silently wished the kid’s sister and Levi could have swapped places. God, it was an awful thought, and as soon as it entered my mind I felt like vomiting. I was disgusted with myself for even entertaining the idea. I was selfish enough to wish for the death of a child in the place of the person I loved. 

  
We had reached the visitor center. Shiganshina Park Information Center was scrawled on a the wooden sign above the building which actually held no useful information. Well, unless you really were ecstatic to know all about the various grasses and squirrels that inhabited the park. It was a freestanding structure that had no walls, only a roof over a circular pillar in the center that held all of the said squirrel and grass information.

  
"I hope you get better," his tone had dropped, almost like he had finally understood what had been said to him.

  
"I do too," Levi responded setting Alexander down.

  
“What’s your favorite color?” The little boy asked, breaking the breif silence.

  
“Mine?” Levi said looking down at him. The kid nodded and Levi looked back up, out at the park then over to me, “Green.”

  
“That's my favorite color too!” The kid shouted, starting to jump up and down. The snow started to come down harder.

  
“Really?” Levi said smiling and crouching down so they could talk, “Someday you should go to the Amundsen Sea, it’s the greenest sea in the world.”

  
“Wow,” the kid said looking at Levi with amazement, “have you ever been there?”

  
“No,” he said, “but when you do you’ll have to enjoy it.”

  
“I’ll have to tell you all about it when I get back!” The kid said smiling.

  
A sad smile crossed Levi’s face as he stood up, “That would be very nice of you.”

  
The kid suddenly started to frantically pull on Levi's sleeve saying, "There she is, there she is!"

  
The woman seemed oddly calm as she approached us, the kid, of course, wasn't, running full speed into his mother's open arms.

  
The sight was, melancholy, to say the least. The woman thanked us quickly before picking up the child and starting to walk away. From his vantage point on the shoulders, he could see us still. He looked our way, smiled and waved before the snow obscured them both.

  
Would I ever have kids?

  
Would I ever have someone to look up at me with unconditional love?

  
I hated the fact that I didn't know, that I couldn't know. I wanted to know. I wanted to know if the person I loved would still be with me tomorrow, but I didn't. I didn't know if I would be able to get over any of this when the time came, and I didn't know if I should be able to get over this when the time came. I had willingly let him in, kept him, knowing that this was inevitable, and knowing that it would tear me apart. Yet I couldn't bring myself to regret my choices, I couldn't bring myself to regret the amount of time that I had spent with him.

  
The snow obscured our vision, and I knew driving home was going to be hell. I looked over to Levi and saw him crying. He looked back at me, “I want to have kids someday. I want to travel, and be in love, and look up at the sky and count the stars,” he paused to take a breath, “I want so much more.”

  
I took his hand and led him away from the park. I wanted to run from this sadness, from this end. Levi was my moon, my stars, my sun, and like hell I was going to let him go out without a fight.

  
Weeks continued to pass, no matter how much I dug my heels in and tried to stop it. I wished more than anything for everything to stop, for everything to rewind and go back to the way it was. I wasn't ready for this. I had talked to the doctors over and over about trying something, anything. Experimental, tried and true, anything that could help him. I didn’t care how much it cost, I didn’t care how much time it took. I wasn’t going to give up. 


	21. Eight Years Ago, Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been approximately 10000 years since I’ve updated this, so sorry school has been hectic, but the good news is I might be graduating a year early! I’m excited I’ve also been distracted writing like four other stories at once that are less depressing, I’ll probably be posting the first chapter to one of them in a week or so. Anyway I’ve been looking forward to this chapter for a while, it’s the last sort of happy one for a while perhaps the rest of the story so be warned! Even this one isn’t that happy, more bittersweet, but goodbyes always are. Enjoy.

I wasn't ready when Levi's hospital visits became more, and more frequent, I wasn't ready for the days that he couldn't even get out of bed, and I sure as hell wasn't ready for him to leave. I had decided that I would do whatever I could to try and keep him in good health, even when the doctors had exhausted their list of pills and treatments, I refused to give up, he wasn't going to leave me, not now, not ever.

  
"I think that's enough," Levi said referring to the supplements I was pouring into a drink I had made for him. He moved behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I could feel his hipbone and ribs press against my back. He smelled like citrus, pine, and peppermint. He had started trying to use essential oils for his pain, I didn’t mind at all. Plus it made him smell nice.

His vision had started to go, quickly. He had to wear thick frames with thicker lenses just to see anymore.

  
If the three month mark was true it meant he still had two left. I had decided to stop spending all of my time thinking about the end. I was going to focus on now. I was going to pretend tomorrow didn’t exist.

  
“I’m taking you on a road trip, tonight,” I said as I spun around and handed Levi the drink.

  
“Mmh,” he said as he took as sip. I could tell he resisted the urge to gag as he sipped it, “sounds fun.”

  
“Is it bad?” I asked referring to the drink.

  
He took another sip before setting it down on the counter beside us, “Pretty bad,” he laughed and I could have drowned in him in that moment.

  
“Perfect,” I said laughing with him and pulling him into a kiss before patting his hip, “I need to go.”

  
“Okay,” he said, picking up the glass again, “thank you for this.”

  
“You’re welcome,” I replied. He followed me to the door as I put on my jacket.

  
He placed a less than chaste kiss on the corner of my lips before planting another on the proper spot, just that action alone could drive me wild with want still, “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back,” he said as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and slipped back down to his natural height.

  
“I can’t wait,” I replied pulling him in for one more kiss before pulling the door open, I really did have to go, “Goodbye, I love you.”

  
“I love you, too,” he said as I closed the door.

  
I had told him I was going to work today. In reality it was my day off, but the eight hours that I now had free gave me plenty of time to get everything together. I had finally saved up enough to buy a ring for him, and if I planned on doing anything with it I would need to act soon, there was no tomorrow. I had no time to be a coward, it was now or never.

  
I stopped first at the bank and then started making my way through almost every jewelers in town. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I had a feeling one would call to me when I saw it. I had an image in my mind of something he would wear. Silver and small, not too flashy, but not so plain that you could easily miss it. It took me being escorted and shown all of the rings in two separate stores before I found what I was looking for.

  
“What about that one?” I said pointing through the glass case at a silver band with small gemstones inlaid in a single file line.

  
“This one” she said opening the case, pulling out the ring and handing it to me, “it’s one tenth pure silver. Just like all of our other rings you can pick the gemstone, and we do engravings with this one.”

  
“What gemstone options are there?” I asked, and listened as she spouted off the list of stones and showed me samples of each, “And if I wanted to get it engraved, would I be able to do that and still get it today?”

  
“Yes” she said nodding, “the engraving process usually only takes, at most an hour, depending on what you’re planning on getting.”

  
I nodded, “Can I have a little time to think?”

  
“Of course,” she responded backing off as I looked over all the rings behind the glass again. My eyes kept coming back to the one she had shown me last. It was perfect. I carefully thought over everything that I wanted. I had decided going to jewelers was one of the best shopping experiences I’d had. I’d been offered coffee and sweets around every corner, which in the end did make it harder to say no to the overpriced fragments of metal. But it was relaxing in a way. It took my focus off the gravity of my decision for even just a few moments.

 

This was the one. The more I looked, the more I was sure of it. This was something he’d wear, something he’d love. The employee started making her rounds before settling in behind the counter in front of me again, “So,” she said, “what are you thinking?”

  
“I think the last one you showed me would be the best.”

  
“Of course,” she said pulling it out along with the sample gemstones, “and what’s your preference on the gemstone.”

  
“Amethyst,” I said accentuating my point by pointing directly at the stone I’d been thinking of. 

  
“Okay, I’ll go grab that for you,” she disappeared into the back room. Leaving me to my thoughts again. There was still time in my day. I still had a few moments to have all the pieces of my plan fall into place. The employee was coming back before I’d had the time to get too lost in my expectations for the night. She was holding out a little white box, she opened it to me, “is this what you were thinking?”

  
“Yeah definitely and could I still get that engraved?”

  
“Sure,” she said reaching under the counter and pulling out a little slip paper, “just fill out what you want on there and we can get you all rung out while they’re engraving it.”

  
I filled out the paper quickly and returned it to her before she, handed it off to another employee, “Is it just the ring for you today?” She said as she punched buttons into the register.

  
“Yeah,” I replied, “Thank you.”

  
By the time I had selected a payment plan (I almost immediately regretted not looking at the price tag, almost), the engraving was done, “Does that look right?”

  
“It’s perfect,” I said inspecting the little “L&E” I had engraved into the inside of the ring.

  
“Is this a wedding ring?” She asked while she wrapped up the little box with ribbons and placed it along with more tissue appear than was real nesccesary into a red paper bag. 

  
“Engagement, actually.”

  
“Well, I’m sure whoever it’s for is one of the luckiest girls in the world.”

  
“He’s definitely not a girl, but I’m lucky to have him.”

  
“Oh, sorry,” she said laughing and shaking her head, “thank you for coming in, and good luck.”

  
“Thanks,” I said laughing as I pushed open the doors and stepped out onto the sidewalk. I felt like I was on top of the world. Nothing could bring me down today I was sure of it. Nothing could go wrong. I had everything planned out to a T. As I reached my car and sat down I checked the time. There was still plenty of daylight left to do everything else.

  
I stopped by a little flower cart on the corner of 4th and Main Street, and bought a bouquet of lilies. Over lunch I took the liberty of my singularity to engage in a little bit of fantasy work. I rehearsed what I was going to say in my head, over, and over, and over. I had the time to imagine what Levi’s face would look like when I asked him how his eyes would light up how he would smile. Of course I had plenty of time to imagine the worst of it too, I was him rejecting me I saw him turning from me and saying he couldn’t say yes. I tried to focus on the good, and promised myself that if everything went according to plan there would be no way he could refuse.

  
My phone buzzed in my pocket. There was a text from Levi, _Are you coming home soon?_

  
_Already on my way!_ I shot back, _Dress nice I’m taking you out tonight._

  
_I thought we were going on a road-trip?_

  
_We are but you still need to dress nicely._

 

_Dork. See you at home soon._

  
I took my time walking back to my car and drove  more slowly than I ever had towards home. Tonight was going to be everything I had ever wished for. It had to be. I had dressed for work but brought the suit I was going to wear out along, so I could surprise Levi when I got home. I sat in the parking lot and changed quickly before unwrapping the ring box and throwing the ribbons, and the bag it had come in into the back with my other clothes. I flipped open the lid to look at it one more time before closing it and shoving it deep into my pocket. I was nervous now. I felt like I knew exactly how he was going to respond, but I still couldn’t help being nervous. I grabbed the flowers and gave myself another once over in reflection of the car window before taking a deep breath and taking the stairs two at a time.

  
Once I stepped inside I was greeted with the smell of Levi’s cooking. He’d been getting better at making crave-able dishes, and was pretty good at it by now. I rounded the coroner and looked into the kitchen to see him standing there, he looked good in a suit and tie. Scratch that, he looked good in everything, but seeing him in a suit and tie excited me. I whistled at him and he turned to look at me, “Spin for me?” I asked. He raised his eyebrow at me before spinning in a small circle, “Damn,” I said walking up to him and handing him the flowers.

  
He almost immediately buried his face in them, “Thank you, so much, I love you,” I kissed him over the bouquet. He immediately turned and reached up to grab a vase from the cabnet. He was up on his toes reaching and I couldn’t help but wonder at the way his ody stretched so delightfully, even if I hadn’t been watching he would still look just as magnificent. Once he had what he desired he took the bouquet over the trash and began to snip off the ends of the stems.

  
“What are you cooking?” I asked as I picked up the wooden spoon that was nestled into the pan of what looked like heaven-sent deliciousness.

  
“Risotto,” he said, adjusting the flowers in the vase, “it’s probably done you can turn it off,” I reached over and turned off the heat “I figured we could take it with us,” he said coming to stand next to me.

  
“Of course,” I said, kissing him again, “I’ll help you pack it up.”

  
With everything ready we walked hand in hand out to the car. It was cold, but clear that night, I thanked the sky for not pouring rain or snow on us tonight.

  
“So where are we going,” Levi asked once we were settled in the car.

  
“It's a secret,” I said looking over at him he rolled his eyes at me.

  
“What are we, twelve here?”

  
“Maybe,” I said, “you’ll have to wait and see.”

  
We smiled and talked all the way there. I knew exactly where we were going and the closer we got the more the butterflies in my stomach started flapping. It was like a hurricane in there. I got increasingly quieter as we got closer.

  
“Are you okay?” Levi asked as I parked the car at our destination.

  
“Yeah, I’m perfectly fine. Why wouldn’t I be,” I replied.

  
“Okay,” he said looking more thoughtfully at me, “because you look like you’re about to shit yourself over there.”

  
I laughed, he put me at ease, “I’m fine,” I said pulling my door open and rounding the hood of the car. I planned on opening Levi’s door for him, but I wasn’t quite fast enough. I was fast enough though, to take his hand and lead him out into the snow covered field at the top of the hill. It was just high enough that the snow didn’t turn to slush during the day so it was still stiff under our feet as we marched across the hilltop.

  
“Is this,” Levi trailed off as we walked further toward the spot whose location I had burned into my memory.

  
“Last time we were here,” I said coming to rest and looking out at the city lights before us, “I remember you told me you liked everything about me, and I thought it was such a strange thing to say because we had really just met, but it made me think. It made me think about everything that I’d had and how nothing had ever really amounted to much and how much I had fucked up in life, but you didn’t see that in me. You didn’t just look at me and see me as something that needed fixing, and I can never thank you enough for that.

  
That night I decided that I was going to take a chance. I decided that I wanted to try something, and that I wanted to try being with you. For as long as we’ve been together I haven’t once regretted that decision,” I stopped and looked over at Levi who was holding onto my arm and staring straight into my soul, “I’ve never regretted one second that I’ve spent with you and no matter what happens, I’m not going to regret being able to call you mine,” I paused again and I could see the tears forming in the corners of Levi’s eyes, “Eight years ago, here, I made the best decision I’ve ever made, so it only felt right to come back here to make the same decision again,” Levi set go of my arm as I turned to face him. I took both of his hands in mine and looked him in the eye. He was crying and smiling at the same time, “Levi, I love you so much and I can’t imagine what I would be without you,” I dropped to my knee and Levi pulled one of his hands away from mine to cover his mouth, “Will you marry me?”

  
I pulled the ring box out of my pocket and flipped it open for him to see. Before my brain even registered what had just happened I was flat on my back in the snow. Levi had wrapped his arms around my neck and tackled me, “Yes,” he said between sobs, “Yes, always yes.”

  
I pulled him into my lap and sat up. He pulled away from me and tears were still streaming down his face. I felt myself crying too. The lights in the background blurred against the shape of Levi’s face. He laughed, “I can’t stop,” he said wiping them away, he pulled me closer to him again, “I love you,” he whispered.

  
“I love you too,” I said as I pulled his hand into mine and slipped the ring on his finger, “Now let’s get back to the car it’s cold as balls out here.”

  
Levi nodded and we made our way back to the car. I hadn’t fully realized how cold it was outside until I got back in the car, and my world warmed up again. It felt like I could run a marathon, it felt like suddenly anything was possible. It felt like I could save the world, but as I looked over at the boy sitting next to me, I realized I didn’t need to save the world to feel like I was valued. He was sitting, admiring the way the moonlight shone off the ring I had given him. I had wanted the world not too long ago, but now all I could ask for was his hand in mine. All I could ask for was more time than this life allowed, and for once in my life, I didn’t feel selfish for asking for more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! It’s a happy day! I hope you liked the chapter, thank you for all the nice comments everyone has left on my other chapters it really motivates me to keep writing. Hopefully it won’t take so long to update this next time!


	22. Pleasant Suprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this entire chapter is basically just drawn out pron with very little plot, so proceed at your own risk. It was my first time writing anything graphic in that department, so hopefully it isn’t too awful. Anyway I always apologize for not updating sooner then never update any sooner, I’m a terrible person, sorry if you’re invested in the story. 
> 
> In other news I got accepted to my dream college and I will be attending in the fall! I’m very excited and feel like I have to tell everyone, but life is looking better for me all of a sudden, always a plus. I won’t keep you any longer, please enjoy the chapter.

After returning to the warmth of the car, Levi turned to look at me, “Do you want to meet my mom?”

  
I was taken a little a back, and not subtly by the look Levi shot in my direction, “I mean, of course, but I thought she didn’t remember you at all.”

  
“She doesn’t,” he paused, “but I think my fiancee should meet my mother, at least once, even if it doesn’t mean anything to her.”

  
“I would love to, just give me a time frame and I’ll be there.”

  
Levi smiled at me, “Thank you,” he said looking down at his lap, “it really means a lot to me.”

  
“It means a lot to me too.”

 

I could see the tension in his back, it had been there for the past few weeks. If I could get physically sick from worrying, I think I would have been dead by now. I wanted to fill the silence. I wanted to talk, take up every minute I had with him, take everything he could give me and not think twice about it. but as I sat in the warm cocoon of the car I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I could only sit and watch the perfect creature that had chosen to stay in my passenger seat for all these years. I wished i could go back, do everything better. Fall harder, faster if that were possible. I wish I had savored every moment I had. I wish we hadn’t fought so much. I should have held him, told him I wasn’t leaving. But as I looked back I began to wonder if that would have made it hurt any less now. Would I have saved myself if I had been more in love before? Was there any solution that gave me some reprieve from the ache that had settled permanently in my chest? 

  
“God, I’m starving,” Levi said opening the container of risotto, breaking into my thoughts, scaring away the blackness of the future and reminding me that as long as there was daylight, there was hope.

  
“Me too,” I said leaning into the dish to get a good whiff of it before leaning back.

  
He dished out some of the delicious food to me, and I was more content than I had ever been before. Suddenly eating homemade food in the car with the person that I loved was the most romantic thing I could think of doing. Anywhere he took me could be the most romantic place on earth as long as I had those two eyes on me. That brilliant smile shining forward. 

  
We ate in silence, Levi couldn't stop smiling, looking at him was like looking at a kaleidoscope. He was broken, yes, but he was still devastatingly entrancing, devastatingly beautiful. I couldn't look away. He had given this life everything that he had and had been denied of the future he deserved but that didn't seem to stop him.

  
He hadn't eaten much by the time he claimed that he couldn't eat anymore. He had been losing his appetite, he had tried to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal, but it seemed like it was my job to worry about him now, so I did. 

  
He turned to look at me as we both finished. He looked me up and down before moving to crawl over the center console, "Dessert now?" His face was centimeters from mine. I hesitated for a moment pulling his glasses off his face. He squinted at me, unable to see properly now, I closed the distance between us and pulled him into my lap. He was a good kisser, he always had been. I felt his teeth brush against my bottom lip and I took the hint for what it was and opened my mouth, granting him the access he desired. Levi's tongue slipped gently into my mouth and I groaned into him as I worked my hands up under his shirt. He caressed my mouth with his own before pulling away and kissing my face, he placed passionate open mouthed kisses across my neck and across my collarbone as he pulled my shirt up and off me.

  
I turned off the car, and the lights that had been illuminating both of us faded out of reality. My breathing had picked up pace as Levi sunk down to his knees in front of me. He pulled the lever at the bottom of the seat and pushed back, giving himself more room to pool his body at my feet. He worked his way down my chest and stomach, I leaned over to capture his mouth with mine once again, before he decided to go to work at the task at hand. He unzipped my pants and pulled them down just far enough to expose me before he pounced. He drew himself up and wrapped his mouth around me. I laced my fingers into his hair and held him closer to my body. He started to move and between his tongue and the back of his throat and I came undone. I allowed myself to be selfish and take from him as I pleased. Levi didn't seem to mind, he braced his arms against the edge of the seat and the door and allowed me to fuck his mouth. He pulled his face away from me for a moment to replace it with his hand for a few seconds before going back to his previous position.

  
I finished quickly, pulling his head back only when I had given him everything I had, "Thank you," I said still out of breath.   
He pushed up off his knees and kissed me again, I couldn't keep my hands off him. I turned the car back on. We had fogged up the windows, I smiled and started to laugh.

  
"I just sucked your cock," Levi said looking up at me with as a dark an expression he could manage, "don't laugh at me."

  
"I wasn't laughing at you," I said unable to stop the post-orgasm giggles that had just overcome me, "I was just thinking about how we probably look like desperate, horny high schoolers with the windows all fogged up."

  
"Who says I'm not still a desperate, horny high schooler at heart?" Levi short back at me, crawling up to straddle my lap, kissing me with more intent than before.

  
I crinkled up my nose "You really want to go back there? I hated high school."

  
"I’m aware,” Levi said with a giggle in my direction, “and yes, I think I’d like to go back," he replied without thinking, "given how I ended up, I must have piqued in high school."

  
Sometimes the world stood still, and sometimes I was so painfully aware of how every second was slipping past me, "Don't say shit like that."

  
"Like what," he asked still trying to kiss me, I had done nothing to relieve him of what looked like a painfully hard erection.

  
"Don't talk about it like your dying," I said. That caught his attention, "I don't want to hear you talk like that about yourself," I instinctively pulled him closer to me, and he ran his fingers through my hair with a sigh.

  
He didn't look angry, exactly, but he wasn't happy, "Eren, you telling me that you don't like it, isn't helping me make peace with the fact that it's eventually going to happen."

  
"Yeah," I said pulling him tighter, I heard him gasp, and I knew I was being too rough, but I couldn't stop myself, "when you're one-hundred years old, and gray, and happy and after you've spent the rest of your life with me," he smiled weakly and we fell into an uncomfortable silence, “we’ll have four kids, and a house and everything good in life.”

”If we’re having kid’s I want at least six,” he said returning his glasses to his face to look at me properly, “I want an entire soccer team.”

 

I laughed, almost on the verge of tears as he stared down at me with that same smile, "Don't you leave me, Levi."

  
He looked like I had punched him when he pulled my face to his, "Let's not talk about this now."

  
"What would you prefer?" I asked, rolling my hips up to meet his where he was still painfully hard. Sex was always a good way to change the subject, "Me telling you how I'm going to fuck that attitude out of you."

  
His breathing almost immediately picked up, "I would like that," he was responding to my movements, "You'll have to tell me all about it on the drive home," with that, he crawled into the passenger's seat, and I kicked the car into drive. If he was going to play me dirty like that I wasn't going to make him wait.

  
"What are you going to do to me?" he asked curling up deliciously in his seat.

  
"I'm going to take you home," I said tying to decide how to engage in my fantasies and keep the car on the road with Levi practically ready to go in the seat next to me, "and I'm going to fuck you against the front door, I'm gonna make sure you scream loud enough for all the neighbors to hear."

  
"That doesn't sound unpleasant," he said leaning over the center console of the car, "what else are you going to do to me."

  
God he was a tease, an absolutely unbreakeable tease. I was ready to go by the time we got home, and I was content with making sure he knew I didn't make promises I couldn't keep. I grabbed his hand and lead him up the stairs to our apartment. As soon as we were inside I pushed him against the door, slamming it shut.

  
I took his mouth with mine, swallowing his gasp. It had been so long since we done it like this. Lately it had been all slow loving caresses, and longing stares. It had been so long since I'd wanted to be rough with him, so long since I had chosen satisfaction over connection. I greedily pulled him closer to me, grabbing his ass, another sound escaped him and I took the opportunity to move my mouth down to his neck. He wrapped one leg around me, I grabbed it, hitching him higher and causing him to wrap his other leg around me. I found his mouth again as he started to rotate his hips against mine.

  
I groaned, "Fuck," I whispered as he took control of our movements.

  
"You weren't kidding me when you said you wanted to fuck me against the door," he panted at me. He was already pulling at my shirt and trying to unbuckle my belt. I let him to help me. I shimmied out of my pants, and decided that no matter how many times I did it, there was no way to make taking off your pants sexy.

  
"I wasn't," I said. I sounded so desperate. There were a few inches between us, and Levi took the space to pull of his clothing.   
I swept my eyes over him, and I realized how much I needed this, ho much he needed it. I wanted to be rough with him. I pulled him in for another kiss, I was in the habit of holding him softly, even now, I knew I wasn't giving him what he wanted.

  
"Stop being so gentle," he called pulling his legs up so I had to press him up against the door again for balance.

  
After that it felt like he was all teeth and harsh holds. His nails were clawing into my back, and I knew I was going to leave bruises on his back and ass where I was holding him. I unhooked one hand from around him and brushed it against the tip of his cock. He was painfully hard and leaking precum already. I dragged my palm across him before allowing myself to start pumping my hand up and down his cock.

  
Levi gasped and pushed his chest flush against mine, "Bedroom. Now," it was a command not a question, and I had to admit that the authority in his voice only turned me on more.

  
"Yes, sir," I responded quickly peeling him off the oak of our front door, and carrying him into our bedroom.

  
I pushed him down underneath me, and reveled in the way he writhed against me, desperately seeking more friction. I thought about how long he'd been like this, how he must be aching by now, and how much he would just want to be taken care of. I didn't waste anymore time teasing him.

  
I sat up suddenly and Levi released me, crawling back so he was sitting against the headboard, I reached into the nightstand and pulled out lube and a condom. I ripped the foil open first and notice how Levi was looking at me like he could eat me. Fuck, it was perfect. I crawled over to him after attending to myself. I coated three fingers with lube and tried to rub my fingers to warm it.

  
Levi was sitting up with his legs spread wide, "I don't fucking care," he said almost sneering at the way I was trying to warm up the substance, "put them in already."

  
I was ready to obey. I grabbed his thigh and pulled him down slightly, he squeaked in surprise, but he knew I had just created a great angle for him. I pushed my first finger in, and didn't waste too much time before adding a second. I could reach deeper with the two in and when I curled my fingers just right....

  
"Ah!" Levi shouted in response, going to cover his mouth before deciding against it he pushed back on my fingers, and I rubbed the same spot as before. I could almost feel the almond sized gland that was granting him so much pleasure. I added a third before pulling them out entirely.

  
"Fuckin'," Levi paused to suck in a sharp breath as I pushed all the way into him, "Ah! Fuck!"

  
If there was anything I was good at, it was angles. I knew just how to position myself to make Levi scream. I grunted as I started, I set a fast pace, we both wanted this.

  
I wrapped one hand around Levi and started stroking him again and felt the way he melted into me. He was making sounds with each move of my hand and hips. It was beautiful, I wanted to fuck him like this forever.

  
I was groaning with each thrust as I felt myself getting closer to the edge, the workout was catching up with me.

  
"Wait," Levi panted at me on a moan. I stopped, and he pulled himself of me. He turned around and held onto the top of the headboard. He liked to be taken from behind. I slid back into him again, like sliding into a little bit of heaven.

  
We picked up with the same speed as before, the position made it so much easier. I was able to slide deeper into him, and he started to cry out louder. I was sure the neighbors would hear us.

  
Levi suddenly lifted one of his legs to rest it on top of the headboard next to his hands. I slid up under him and adjusted the way I pushed into him, with one free hand I reached around and grabbed his cock again.

  
He came quickly after that, it was almost like it snuck up on him, he seemed as surprised as I was when he surged against my hand. I fucked him through his orgasm, until I followed in suit. Everything felt so good. I sagged backwards and sat down, Levi's arms were still supporting him, and we both panted into our recovery.

  
"I can't feel my legs," Levi said with a euphoric giggle.

  
I pulled him down on top of me. We were both still covered in come, but it didn't bother me.

  
"Gross," Levi said trying to sit up.

  
I held him down to my chest, "It's not gross."

  
"It really is though," he said. I released him and he sat up, "we can snuggle after we clean up, yeah?" He leaned down and kissed me.

  
I sat up and pulled Levi into my lap and picked him up easily. He gave me a look, and I carried him to the bathroom, "If you can't feel your legs, I think I should take a shower with that, for safety."

  
"For safety," he agreed nodding once.

  
We showered in peaceful silence. I changed the sheets while Levi took his nightly medication.

  
We met up in bed, Levi crawled in beside me, "Who said you were allowed to wear these?" I said snapping the elastic in his underwear.

  
"I'm sorry, your highness," he mocked as he slipped out of his skivvies.

  
I pressed myself against him. I could feel every curve of his body as it pressed into mine, I could feel every dip of his spine against my hand. I could feel his heartbeat and his breathing just below the skin of his chest. He felt so warm.

  
He felt so alive.

  
How could he be suffering so much and still feel so alive beneath me?

  
"You never promised," I whispered, just barely audible.

  
"Promised what?"

  
"That you'll never leave me," I could hear him breathe, "promise me?"

  
He pulled me closer, it felt like he was trying to pull himself into me, "Eren, I promise that I'll never leave you."

  
That was enough for me.


	23. Meetings are not Entirely Unpleasant

I didn't know what to expect from meeting Levi's mother. In all honesty I hadn't expected it to really happen at all, yet here I was, in the driver's seat, making the trip to psychiatric care facility far away from home. It had been several weeks since Levi asked me to visit his mother, and I could tell he was hesitant to show me, he had been hesitant to reopen the wound.

He had been getting worse. The doctors hadn't wanted us to take this trip but Levi had insisted. He hadn't told them he was going, just pulled me up one morning and announced that we would be leaving today.

I hoped beyond all hope that it would be painless.

Levi had started to do things like this more often now. He had said goodbye to a few old friends that I hadn't known he still was in contact with, before shutting them off. He was isolating himself. It worried me at first, but it only took me a little while longer to realize what he was doing. He was tying up loses ends, making sure the story of his life came to a close, making sure he didn't leave anyone on a cliffhanger. He'd stopped doing commissions after his diagnosis. He had only been painting original works since then. Most of them, I couldn't help but notice, we of me.

His vision was almost completely gone by now. He could still see shapes vaguely and colors, but details were lost on him, and I think he was starting to get double vision. The thick glasses that had maxed out the prescription did little to help him anymore. He had to hold onto things to walk around, I would lead him most times, but he had refused to stop painting. He refused to stop working. All of his works now were just large splotches of color, some had shapes in them but very few could be distinguished.

He was facing out the window, "Where are we?"

"Hm?" I had been so lost in my own thoughts.

"I think we just passed a welcome sign, are we there yet?"

"I think so," I said squinting at the small town on the horizon, "are you ready?"

We had made the appointment in advance, and planned the journey to keep up away from home as little as possible, "Not really," he had to use his mouth more to speak now. His lips wouldn't form the words he needed the first time he tried.

We drove silently. I parked when we reached the small one story building that I had marked on the map, "We're here."

Levi nodded and made a blind grope for the door handle. It took him several tries to get it right. I helped him up out of his seat and in the light I noticed it for the first time. There was a film over his eyes, turning the gray of his eyes to a pale blue. He looked forward, gripping my arm. It felt like he should have been old. It felt like I should have been escorting a World War veteran, not the love of my life.

  
We walked arm in arm to the doors and checked in at the front desk before the woman behind it escorted us to Levi's mother's room.

  
The nurse knocked on the door before speaking softly, "Kutchel, your visitors are here."

  
"I have visitors? Who is it?" She said, all but throwing open the door. Just the sound of her voice had almost moved Levi to tears. I could see them forming in the rims of his eyes.

  
We were ushered into the room and the nurse made sure that Kutchel was settled before leaving us to speak with her. Her room was simple, but she’d obviously lived here for a number of years. There was a single bed in the corner, almost with a dresser with three drawers. Everything from the beframe to the tiles on the floor was white, but the blankness of the walls was broken up by what could have been hundreds of drawings, some were colored some weren’t, but they all were unmistakably Levi’s. Some date back to almost ten years ago, the paper yellowing and peeling away from the wall. There were sticky notes with little cartoony sketches, large papers covered in intricate patterns, and even some that consisted mostly of words. 

 

Kutchel herself was a sight to behold, dressed plainly in a long skirt and top, she looked almost just like Levi. 

  
"Hello," she was the first to speak to us.

  
"Hi," Levi choked out, trying to look composed. 

  
"Are you here to tell me about my husband, you said you knew something about him yesterday?"

  
"No," I spoke for Levi, "we just came to check in on you."

  
"How have you been?" Levi asked wiping the tears from his eyes.

  
His mom started to ramble on about her life that seemed to be more or less a half remembered fantasy. Levi listened to all of it, paid attention like she was speaking the truth, and in her own way, I guess she was. The mad rambling was the way she saw the world, the way she saw the things that had happened. Eventually, her explanation dropped off with her telling us about what she had eaten for breakfast, "How have you been? You look tired."

  
"I've been good," Levi said, "I actually came here to introduce you to Eren," I took the opportunity to reach my hand out and shake her's. Levi had told me that she was very polite, she would pretend to know you if you seemed like you cared enough.

  
"And who is Eren?"

  
"You haven't met him before, he's my fiancée."

  
The way the word rolled off his tongue so easily sent a shock through me. She obviously didn't recognize Levi, she had confused him for another person when he had walked through the door, but she acted like that didn't matter, too senile at this point to notice or care. 

  
"That's nice, I was engaged once too," that sent her off on another tangent. She started talking about how she had married her husband and had two children, "I haven't seen them this week, maybe they’ll come again soon. We’ll all go out for ice cream as a family," she laughed.

  
"What are your kids like?" I knew I was stepping into dangerous waters but I wanted to see if she remembered anything. Levi stiffened beside me.

  
"Oh, I have two of them," she started, "A little girl, Mikasa, and a little boy Levi," he jolted at the sound of his name, "they're both small still. Levi's the youngest he'll be eight this year. Mikasa will be eleven. They're both the sweetest children," she put her hand on her chest and smiled, "They both care about everyone so much, they’re such kind little things. I’m sure they’ll grow up wonderfully."

  
Levi was struggling to hold his tears back, the flood was threatening to overflow but he had more self control than many gave him credit for.

  
I pushed further, "I think I might know Levi, can you tell me more about him?"

  
She hummed for a few seconds, "He had his father's face, but my eyes. He's such a sweet little boy, he likes to draw, he's pretty good at it for his age, I'm sure I have some of his drawings around here somewhere," she swiveled around for a few seconds before coming back to face us, obviously having already forgotten about the drawings, "Oh, and he has the cutest red sweater. He loves that, barely takes it off," she smiled again.

"It sounds like you love him very much," I butted in.

"With all my heart," she smiled, “I can't wait to see him again.”

We had been warned to not to try and convince her of who we were, it would just upset her. Apparently she had attacked one of her friends, insisting that they were an imposter when they had introduced themselves and insisted they were not lying about their identity.

Levi and his mother sat and spoke for another half hour before the nurse came back to escort us out. Levi told his mother about his illness and how he didn't think he had much longer left, and she gave him a friendly, but impersonal, condolence before letting the subject drop.

Before we could exit the door Levi turned back to Kutchel, "I spoke with your son the other day. He loves you very much as well, he misses you, wishes he could come visit you more often."

"You saw him?" she said standing up to come over to us, "Was he doing well?"

"Yes, he's doing well, he's quite happy, he's lived a good life."

"Thank you," she said tears starting to fall from her eyes, "did he say when he would come and visit me next?"

"As soon as he can," Levi said, "he wishes you the best."

She smiled and hugged Levi thanking him over and over and the flood that had been threatening to overflow since we walked through the doors finally spilled over and he began to cry. It started as a silent flow of tears, but as soon as we were seated in the car, he couldn't keep quiet. He wept, shoved his glasses up off his face to scrub at his eyes. He was breathing hard and making no attempt to get himself under control. I let him cry, I had no right to try and tell him that he couldn't lose it after everything he had just gone through. I had lost a parent, I thought that was as hard as it got. But this was so much worse. Having the person you loved most not be able to recognize you was a hell that I couldn't wish on anyone. I started the car and tried to get it to warm up.

I was able to coax Levi over to me and I held him as he cried. He had been doing a lot of that recently. It was hard to watch someone slowly disintegrate. He didn't recover. The entire drive home was almost silent, I watched as his tears would cease, only to have them start to fall down his face minutes later.

"It was nice to meet her," I said finally breaking the tenseness. Levi nodded.

"It was nice to say goodbye," he said looking out the window again, "she deserves at least that."

It was my turn to nod, “All those drawings on the walls those were yours right?”

He nodded, “Yeah, before I left for school I used to come visit her all the time. She would make up little stories to tell me, or ask me to draw pictures for her. I always did it. She kept everything I made her.”

”That has to count for something right?” 

“What do you mean?” Levi asked, eyes finally dry.

”I mean, she has to remeber you at least on a subconscious level then right? She wouldn’t just keep pictures a stranger gave her,” I replied trying to give him some hope.

”Maybe at one time she did,” he said leaning his head against the window, “there’s comfort in that at least.” 

We reached home in record time, and I lead Levi up the stairs into our apartment. He kissed me as soon as we were through the door, and I was more than happy to return the favor. He had been drawing away from me slowly. Physically and emotionally. I had heard the excuse of "I'm too tired," and "Maybe some other time," more often than I though would be possible. I didn't want to be another loose end he needed to tie up. I didn't want him to pull away from me.

But tonight was different, he allowed me to hold him, to caress him, and it didn't feel like making love. It was too sad for that, but even as he told me to make him forget what life was like without him, I didn't regret anything for a second. I couldn't. Not when he was here with me. Alive, kicking, and whispering how much he loved me. Even as I could feel him tearing me apart, piece by piece I didn't regret a thing. 


End file.
